


Keep That Breathless Charm

by jacklalonde



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bookstore, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Ghost!AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-03-28
Packaged: 2018-01-05 05:11:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 52,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacklalonde/pseuds/jacklalonde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean knew that this whole working thing could have its small surprises, but he doesn't think that the job description ever called for him meeting an attractive ghost boy with a face full of freckles and a taste for classic novels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> This AU is going to be filled with lame excuses for canon references such as 3Dmaneuverboards, a book series called The Titans and a bookstore I just had to name St. Maria’s. It's basically going to be lame in general. Also, let’s just pretend that a business like this is totally legal and that ghosts exist, all right?
> 
> and here's a quick blood //trigger warning just in case! 
> 
> Title from The Way You Look Tonight by Frank Sinatra

The clock ticks through a couple seconds on the wall. The air in the room is humid and there’s sweat rolling down the back of both of their necks. Jean Kirschtein’s teeth are clenched as what he’s just said settles in his stomach. Into the heated air between them Jean’s mother turns and shouts, the dish towel flailing. “You don’t want me to have to provide for you? Go get a job, then! _Do something_!” She turns back to the kitchen counter, the rage still tense in her shoulders.  
And Jean—the tears burning his eyes and his hands shaking—turns and slams the porch door shut. And does.

Armin is no help about the idea of a job, of course. He assures Jean that his mother isn’t forcing him to do anything and that she was just angry; that she loves him. But Jean continues on his one-track train of thought, flicking a crumb off the table between them. He has to do something. Armin finishes his sandwich and they leave the restaurant together, Jean still trying to convince the shorter blonde of his plans all while keeping his brows furrowed in a determined line. He ends up sleeping on Armin’s floor like he sometimes does that night. It’s not that bad. Armin looks distressed during the entire ordeal and he can’t stop absently running his hands through his blonde hair, but Jean knows that Armin would never tell him to flat-out leave. Besides, it’s only a few nights. Some time to calm himself down.  
Jean folds some of his things in a neat pile in Armin’s closet and hopes that he doesn’t notice. He likes the way it makes it look like he belongs there, even if it isn’t for long. He just needs a little time to get on his feet.

Thus begins the search for every help wanted sign around the city. Riding through the blazing summer on his custom 3Dmaneuverboard, flannel blowing behind him like the pretentious skater douchebag he is, he looks into the window of every shop he sees the first day. They either don’t suit him or the owners give him a once over before slamming the door in his face, which maybe he should have expected. He thinks it’s his lack of a shave in the past two weeks or the fact that he looks like the idea of an honor student that’ll end up getting nowhere in life. Which is what he is.Jean can’t help that he looks like an asshole. Or that he is somewhat of an asshole. In fact, he’d consider it a gift.  
He makes the search into a group event as well, inviting along Armin and Sasha on his daily job hunts through the winding streets. Armin gets them lunch, and the park is the perfect place for them to sit around and reminisce on old high school memories half the day. Sasha Braus is a better boarder than himself, so later around sunset she sails in front of Jean on her electric green maneuverboard that her parents had gotten her for graduation, a vision of beauty in a ratty tank top and cut-off shorts. Jean would never be able to afford something like that amazing board he can’t stop staring at, especially at this rate.  
Connie even tags along one day, even though he should be working at the grocery the time he shows up. Instead, he holds Sasha’s hand while they sail together, and Jean can’t help but ride by them both and flick the stupid snapback off Connie’s head.

It’s on a day when nobody comes with, however, that Jean pitches his maneuverboard next to an array of well-trimmed bushes and hops up to the curb before sauntering inside St. Maria’s Books on the edge of town. It’s part of an ancient strip mall complex and looks like the least visited place in the entire row of small stores that line the chipped road. But Jean’s eyes are focused on the bright orange sign in the window. _Get a job, Jean_ , he tells himself. _Support yourself and make some cash so you can get the hell out of here_.

Hearing a tiny bell ring above his head, Jean is immediately overwhelmed when he almost crashes into a shelf of books upon walking in. He weaves his way around, the comforting smell of ancient pages guiding him through an aisle of books that travels all the way to the ceiling. Maybe it’s old fashioned, and books aren’t really his thing, but then again he hasn’t walked back out the door yet. He stops walking through the aisles, touching every spine with his index finger, to face the employees sitting behind a desk; four heels kicked up on the polished wood, faces hidden behind two newspaper headlines. Forgetting to watch his footing, Jean knocks his foot against the corner of a rack of “JUST ARRIVED!” books and one of the newspaper pages lowers slowly, revealing a man with hair messily falling away from his face in an undercut and a messy scowl to match. Jean swears under his breath, his foot throbbing. The other tips her newspaper down as well and looks down at Jean over her glasses.

“And what might I help you with?” she asks, mouth curling into a smile that somehow gives off the impression that she’s ready to kill him. Jean smirks at the growling man next to her, then glances around himself.

“I saw you’re hiring,” he says. The man gives absolutely no reaction, then puts his paper back up.

“But not kids like you.” Jean is taken aback, biting his tongue to keep from calling him out. He’s still insulted even though he knows he’s right, and settles for a glare at the newspaper headline. He walks closer to the counter, still. The woman, now looking at him straight on through thin-rimmed glasses and a blinding smile, hasn’t seemed to notice any of this exchange. She leans over the desk, up in Jean’s face so close he can see the glint from the window in her brown eyes.

“And what makes you think you’re good enough to work in this bookstore, squirt?” She vaults the counter, so gracefully with her ponytail flying that Jean jumps back, tripping over the end of one of his shoes again. He watches her bound over to one of the shelves, pick a title and open it slowly. “How deep does your passion for literature run?” Jean stares. “Are you willing to dedicate your time being the main caretaker for these novels? These _masterpieces_?” Jean tries to keep a straight face.

“Um, yeah,” he replies. The woman slams the book closed with one hand and eyes Jean skeptically, a hand on her hip.

“Give him a break. If he has anything that could pass for a brain in his skull he’ll be able to organize a bookshelf and work a register.” Jean glances back at Grimace by the desk.

“I’m Levi,” he says, kicking his feet off the desk. “Just Levi. Anything but Levi could get you tugged out the door by the collar of that dirty flannel of yours. I’m sure you’re going to love having Hanji and I as your bosses.” Levi looks as uninterested as ever as his eyes shift over from Jean to something next to him. “Hanji—could you leave the fresh meat alone?” Jean jerks when he feels warm air on his neck. He turns to find Glasses touching one of the key chains clasped to his backpack, and instinctively Jean jerks them from her reach. She grins at him and walks back to the desk, vaulting it again. Jean checks to make sure every decoration is in the right place on the canvas bag. What the hell has just happened.

“Here brat, fill these out. We’ll call you within a week if you’re worthy.” Jean turns back toward his possible new bosses and feels a sort of tentative excitement slowly start to build as he sees the application forms he’s about to fill out.

“I’m Jean, by the way—“

“And I’m waiting. The forms, kid.”

Jean takes them. “Was this my interview? Or—“

“We’re good judges of character,” Hanji interupts with a wink.

“We’re desperate.” Levi says, impassive. Jean takes the pen and fills out the sheets with a slightly shaky hand. Levi and Hanji go back to their reading. And when Jean takes their business card from the counter and says his goodbye, they don’t respond.

 

Feeling especially proud of himself, Jean jogs out of St. Maria’s Books, silently thanking whoever Saint Maria is for getting him a job that sounds like the easiest fucking thing in the world. Levi and Hanji’s numbers are on the business card in his hand, a promise of within a week still ringing in his ears. He’s going to get the job. He’s going to make enough by the end of the summer. He’s gonna get out of here before his mom starts screaming at him about college and how long his hair is getting. He’ll be on a bus before he can blink, set on a road to nowhere. Just like he wants it.

He goes to grab his maneuverboard first, which is lying on its side next to the bushes a little ways away from the store. Maybe he’s a bit of an abusive owner to his precious board, but it’s survived this long already. He marvels at his hand-painted work for the thousandth time before bending down to pick it up, smiling a little to himself. He’s a good skater. Really good. Maybe that’s his arrogance talking, but who even cares. Maneuverboarding is hard and Jean is actually good it. At something. Plus this thick piece of plastic he’s holding has the potential to take him far away from home, which is always a plus. But then there’s crunching of dry grass behind him and a voice that Jean prayed he’d never have to hear again after graduation.

“Hey, what’re you doing here, Kirschtein?” says the voice behind him. “Since when have you been into reading?” Jean turns to Eren Jaeger’s dumb smirk and mirrors it.

“Ever since now. Just applied a summer job,” he grins, not even Eren’s expression turning his mood down. Eren looks at him like he’s just told him he’s decided to become a part time pole dancer instead of selling books a few feet away.

“Here?” Eren asks, looking at the building in utter revulsion. Jean wants to tell him that Jesus, _it’s just a building_. It’s while Eren’s probably trying to think of some sort of follow-up insult when Jean realizes that by the corner of the street, Reiner and Bertl, boyfriends and Eren’s almost-bodyguards, are standing holding their shining new maneuverboards and looking both huge and terrifying. Jean winks at them. Just like high school.

“Hey Kirschtein, you should ride with us today. We’re headed up to the pool. They just drained it because of some mold or whatever.” Jean looks at Eren, his permanently angry face somehow contorting into a smile. He would get excited over that.

“And why the hell would I want to do that?” It didn’t take Jean half a second to remember that Eren’s idea of fun is sliding down rails at top speed, breaking into private skate parks and basically trying to kill himself any way a maneuverboard can help. He’s dangerous, and irresponsible, and it’s one of the many reasons why he can’t stand the look on Jaeger’s face right now.

“A congratulations on your job! Plus, we’ve got things to catch up on,” he sneers. Memories of their rivalry come dropping into his brain like tiny bombs. No thank you. Jean drops his board to the ground and stops it with his foot. He’s not dealing with this today. He’s not going to let himself get angry over this.

“Not today, Jaeger.” Eren’s grimace grows wider.

“Oh come on Jean. You could finally try those jumps you never wanted to do during school.” Eren knows that he doesn’t do jumps. He doesn’t go tricks. He’s not a show-off jumping shrimp like Eren was and is. He uses his maneuverboard for speed. To give him the easiest way out.

“It’s not like you have anything better to do-“

“JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

Jean watches Eren’s face slowly shift. He bites his words one more time at Eren’s curled back lips. “Another time, for sure. Oh, and I can invite Armin too if you want.” Jean knows he’s pouring salt in Jaeger’s open wound, and it triggers something in the wild haired boy. Probably because Armin and Eren had a falling out and it may or may not have been Jean’s fault entirely. Armin barely even looked at Eren senior year and became Jean’s closest friend, his right hand man. Jean can see Eren going over it in his mind. His loathing for Jean just grew from there. Jean doesn’t blame him.

Jean watches as Eren’s green eyes fill with fire and as he whips toward Bertl and Renier. He jerks his head for them to come over, and Jean swallows. He then realizes that Annie Leonhardt is with them, hidden behind Renier’s thick frame before. Jean’s feet immediately hit his board without a thought and he kicks his foot out behind him after cursing under his breath. He could hold off Eren, but all four of them? Annie? Hell no.

It takes about three seconds before Eren realizes Jean is frantically skating away, and then he hears Eren’s shouts as he hops on his maneuverboard and screams for the others to hurry the fuck up. Jean takes a sharp turn around the corner of the street. Things aren’t too busy right now, but there are still cars here and there and Jean has to bend his body to avoid a side mirror on a parked car while he passes. Keeping his hands out on the sides of him for balance while he dodges another honking car, he rolls along the pavement, glancing behind him at surveying how much of a head start he’s got on them. He’s got a mantra of curses flowing through his veins, almost losing his footing when the sun peeks through one of the buildings and almost blinds him. This isn’t freshman year anymore. He can’t afford to deal with this guy after high school. Even if it was himself who started this in school with just a friendly opposition between them, he didn’t think that he would be skating away from Eren’s rage four years later.

He decides that if they catch him, he’ll fight back. It’s just Jaeger. Well, Jaeger and three of the toughest graduates Jean’s ever had the misery of meeting.

 

The sun is starting to set, and Jean goes over his options. He needs to find somewhere to stop; he’s speeding up so much now and there’s traffic ahead and there’s not much else he can do. They’re getting close. He can hear the hiss of their wheels burning the pavement behind him. He glances one last time behind him, at Annie skating emotionless but with more grace than any of them, and Eren in the front, basically becoming the Human Torch. Jean can’t help but roll his eyes through his fear. If he can just make it past this next turn he could avoid traffic— and then a rock hits his wheel and Jean flies forward at top speed toward death.

 

The first thing to hit the sweltering street is his left arm, scraping against the empty road, the rest of his body following. His entire body is in a massive meat grinder, tearing skin off until his momentum finally ends. When he slows to a painful stop, he can’t move. Every ounce of air is far from his gasping lungs. Opening one of his eyes, Jean sees a tiny pool of blood next to him, which must be from where his cheek feels like it’s been ripped away. He can feel the bloody skin replaced gravel throb as he lies there. He has barely enough time to take an overview of his pain before another stab comes; the sound of his board being picked up off the ground. Jean can hear someone saying a string of insults about him above his uninjured ear. Then, Jean hears the unmistakable sound of his board cracking in two. It was probably Renier who did it. He’s strong enough. Or Annie. And then they’re gone.

Jean doesn’t move after that. He waits until the air returns to his lungs, until he can just hear his mothers screeching words in his mind; “go get a job! _Do something_!”

Jean looks out at his arm sprawled out in front of him, the one that still clutches the crumbled piece of paper in his hand with Levi and Hanji’s numbers on it.

_I think I did._

 

Levi drops a set of keys in Jean’s hand after three training days a week and a half later. Thus concludes Jean’s guidance in the book selling business. Hanji had already showed him the cash register and tip jar, but Jean has worked in retail before, so obviously he zoned out throughout the whole thing. Now, Hanji pushes her glasses up her nose and gives Jean and enthusiastic thumbs up partnered with a frenzied smile.

“We’ll be with you on Tuesdays and Thursdays, four to ten. Other than that, you’re on your own second shift, kiddo.”

“That’s fine, really.” Jean breathes, relief flowing from his fingers. Being an asshole could really wear someone out. He thinks he needs this time alone. Levi looks indifferently toward Jean and then toward Hanji.

“We have security cameras, remember. Take something and you’re dead.” The glare afterwards makes Jean believe that Levi has already picked out his coffin color.  
This whole thing is so casual, letting him take care of the quiet bookstore, and he’s not even sure if it’s legal, but he’s getting paid to sit and _take that mom, I’m working again_.  
When they’re almost out the door, Levi turns around, the little bell already ringing above his head.

“Lock up at ten. But if those kids with the shitty skateboards come back around here again, don’t wait to lock the goddamn door.” Jean feels himself start to half-smile, to which Levi quickly turns away.

“They’re called maneuverboards, boss,” Jean calls, and Levi slams the door.

The sweltering air begins to cool and the shops along the street are flooded with visitors that are blissfully unaware of how they’ve found themselves in a place where Jean wants to escape. It’s then when St. Maria gets her customers for the day. They come around just as the sun starts its dip into the sky, Jean works the cash register, then they’re gone. And when they’re all gone it seems that the rest of the night is his. On the first day of working his fantastic new job alone, Jean makes a few sales, mostly some of the classic books that the people here feed on like parasites. But after Jean watches the crisp orange fade through the glass display windows, he jumps out from behind the wooden counter and finally takes his first tour around the store.

It’s amazing. Jean hates to admit it to himself. This small store with its dim lighting and cozy feeling is amazing. Through a small aisle of science fiction novels he walks, stopping to pick up one about an alien abduction with a generic looking Martian on the cover. He might read it later, who knows. He’s not real big on books, but still. He could have all the time in the world, it seems. Jean hears a small tap from behind him, turns and wonders why the bell didn’t ring above the door to tell him someone’s walked in. After staring back into the aisle towards his desk, the book still in his hands, he hears the old building settle back into silence. He lets the air out of his nose in mock-relief. First day jitters. Even if it is his fourth.

While he reads the description of the book in his hands, Jean glimpses over at the damage on his arms and feels his frown settle into place. The scabs are starting to cover up to his elbow and let him move his arm without wincing. The scrapes on his cheek are already halfway healed, but the ones on his shoulder where his t-shirt tore still pulse when he turns. There’s even scrapes on his ankle, so walking here earlier was hell. But, turning the book over in his hand over and over again so as to watch his healing skin, he knows it’ll be fine. They’re sort of like battle scars, instead of the product of his own dumb mistake. Skin can heal.

Placing it back on the shelf, Jean hobbles over to the section of non-fiction novels and autobiographies, some worn and torn at the edges. Half the books are resale, and it’s easy to pick out which ones have had their pages turned before, and which ones have been straight up abused. Eren Jaeger’s probably a person who does things that that to books. Bends their pages. Draws in the corners. Maybe he can’t even read. The bell above the door rings and Jean tries not to notice the taken-aback look on the elderly man’s face as Jean appears around the bookshelf shouting a greeting, the scabs on his face peeling.

Towards the end of his shift, Jean is staring at the darkened windows again, wondering if he should just close up the shop. Nobody’s come for the last hour, and if this is how it’s always going to be Jean wonders if he’ll be able to stand it. He glances at his phone. Just a congratulations from Armin on his first day back alone in the working world. That blonde boy has signed the text with three smiley faces. Jean wonders how long he’s been praying for Jean to get his shit together. He cracks his back over the chair behind him and prays that his train of thought won’t lead him where he thinks it will. It does.

 

It was hard, leaving Armin’s house and going back home. It was hard with his mom. Showing up at the door with his backpack and covered in road burn up and down his body and no apology on his lips.

It was hard before when he went to Armin covered in blood and without his board. And it was especially hard keeping in the screams when Armin called Christa to come clean him up in the Arlert family’s bathtub. Christa is working as a nursing assistant over the summer and was so sweet in high school and even sweeter after as Jean greeted her bleeding in the tub in only his boxers. She was polite and gentle but it was hard not to want to snap at her when she went after his bloody side with a washcloth.

And when Armin finally told Jean that he should go home, it was hard trying to move himself back in. His mother screamed and cried about him getting into trouble and going nowhere, and Jean was silent as usual as he unpacked his things back into his room. When his mom finally left the doorway, Jean sat down on his bed and took in those four walls around him. His bed was his again, though it never really felt like it.

 

On the third day of working and his second shift alone, Jean finds the infamous back room. He’d been so bored behind his desk and though he’d never think of moving more than a few feet when Hanji or Levi are there for fear of screwing something up, when they’re gone Jean can’t help but want to explore every part of the store he can find. But Hanji had stressed while filing her nails that he’s never go into unless they were here with him. His hand hovers over the doorknob, but then he remembers the reminder of security cameras and the look that Levi gave. He finally gives in to his better judgment, lowers his hand and moves over to another part of the store.

“Shit,” Jean whispers to himself, moving over to a section he’s never seen before filled with old CDs and tapes. Not just that, but actual vinyl records and a record player displayed in the corner. Jean looks over to it earnestly, rocking up onto his tiptoes. There’s already one in there, a Nirvana record that’s starting to show off its new coat of dust. Jean flicks through the rows of records next to it, blowing air through his nose in disbelief. None of the CDs nearby are new, and maybe that’s why St. Maria mostly sells books. Some of the used CDs look like they’ve survived a war. Eren’s face flashes behind Jean’s eyes again, the sound of Annie or Reiner cracking his board.

Turning back to the record player, hoping to not let himself reminisce on high school drama or the pain in his shoulder, Jean adjusts the needle and flicks it on. Midsong, a guitar riff hits Jean’s ears and he laughs to himself in the empty store. He bobs his head all the way back to the desk and even taps his fingers like drumsticks in the air even though he feels like someone might be watching. He only stops when the record does.

 

It becomes a routine when Hanji or Levi isn’t there. Jean turns on the record player when the sun sets, and sings to himself from behind the cash register. He only turns it off when he’s about to lock up, and once it’s off and the silence fills his ears it’s enough to make Jean a little uneasy. At least when Levi’s sitting next to him with his head bent over some documents (he apparently always does his tax work at St. Maria’s) Jean can hear breathing besides his own. Hanji will talk Jean’s ear off if he lets her, but when he’s alone—the building itself can be a little eerie. It’s old, but more importantly, it feels old. It smells old. The only time when the place doesn’t smell like ancient books and an old roof is when Hanji returns from the backroom with a bag of microwave popcorn, which of course causes Jean to piece together that they probably keep their snacks hidden back there among the unsorted books. Jean wonders if this business is even legal, sometimes. Or if his bosses just don’t want to share their snacks.

Jean discovers that Hanji really does take this job too seriously just like he thought. She talks about books; all the time, every day. She shows off a new book-related t-shirt every day. His first impression of her was too correct; she’s insane, but not like Levi-insane, but insane all the same. Jean doesn’t know much about her other than her undying passion for a book series called The Titans. Jean had heard of it before, but he doesn’t need to read it now after all that Hanji’s told him. She gets this grin on her face when she talks about those books, an uncontrollable excitement that Jean just doesn’t understand. Excited about books? _Really?_ After a while he imagines it’s what he looked like back in high school when he got talking about maneuverboards, or school breaks, or Mikasa Ackerman; another reason Eren hates him.

Jean doesn’t know anything about Levi, but he’ll chime in about something that Hanji’s got wrong during one of her Titan spiels, so Jean guesses he’s just as much of a nut as her. The looks that he gives Hanji are softer than they are to Jean, too. Not by much, but a little. There’s only one other thing that Jean has learned about the cold man; that he is a complete and utter germaphobe. And if Jean decides to go get McDonalds before work and he spills even the tiniest bit of honey mustard Levi will threaten homicide. So Jean cleans when he’s told and tries to stay out of Levi’s way even when they’re behind the desk together. He usually just flicks through the same maneuverboard catalog when his bosses are around, feeling sorry for himself that he can’t afford another one to replace his broken one yet. If he wants another one, he’ll have to put off his escape plan a couple of months. The city feels like it’s closing in on him.

 

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Jean feels the silence. When there are customers inside he just listens to them, their quiet chatter, relishing in it. It’s even better when they make small talk with him, or ask him where a certain novel is because at least then he can hear a voice besides himself. Because after a week, Jean feels like the old building has a feeling other than old to it. Jean’s flicking through records in the corner one day, trying to find his record of the day and he feels it over his shoulder. Like a customer could be right behind him. After glancing over his shoulder to see there’s nothing but him and a thousand books in the room, of course he brushes it off and he sings along to Bob Dylan as he goes to dust a shelf. Halfway through the first aisle his phone vibrates, and checking the number he groans loudly when he sees it’s his mom.

“I’m working.” Jean answers, voice flat and searching for excuses.

“Yeah, so am I. I need you to get groceries tonight after you get home. The money’s on the counter.” He can hear the sound of his mom typing at her desk in the background. At least she’s in a good mood.

“But I don’t get off until ten.”

“I can’t do everything, Jean. When you get a place of your own you’ll have to do this all the time.”

“Fine.” His mind is telling him to hang up, but instead he listens to the seconds of dead air between them and dusts another shelf.

“How’s your arm?” It’s the same trivial question as always. Jean has become a patchwork quilt, if he’s being honest. Some scabs have turned white; he finds it hard not to pick at them and they itch all the goddamn time. But he just breathes into the phone “It’s fine. I’ve got to get back to work, okay? There’s a lot of customers coming in.” There’s silence from the other end.

“Yeah. Don’t forget the groceries.” And then Jean shoves his phone back into his pocket. He wants to cry, for some reason. Maybe it’s because she didn’t yell. Or that no one’s come in the store all day. Or that he really is alone right now.

 

It’s on Wednesday of the second week of working, when the final few customers are leaving with their shiny new copies of Pride and Prejudice, when Jean lets out an overdramatic, exhausted sigh. This whole “working” thing is getting old. This is why he quit his retail job in high school—it was so repetitive and tiresome; and even with this miracle of a job Jean feels it getting old. He picks a scab to pass the time. His mom yelled at him last night for the fact that his arms are still patches of uneven skin, but Jean can’t help how restless he becomes when he’s alone in this place. He needs something to do, even if it hurts. He gets up from his chair and musses his dumb, two-toned unwashed hair.

Jean returns back to the desk after putting on a Bon Jovi CD and reaches for his McDonald’s coffee, taking a couple chugs. Levi’s not here, so Jean can bring any sort of food he wants to work, as long as he picks up any stray crumbs. He doesn’t _think_ Levi will notice the food stain in Jean’s chair, at least.  
Placing the plastic cup back on the counter, Jean turns and heads toward the back room, to which his entrance has now been granted. Upon its great reveal, Jean now knew that there were no rotting dead bodies inside, just an uninteresting wall lined with boxes of books that need to be sorted and processed, a microwave, and minifridge in the corner. Jean won’t ever gain access to those.

A new shipment of books are in, a heaping pile of copies of Catcher in the Rye on top and Jean eyes them disdainfully, remembering all the essays in high school. Armin was ace at English, his hand constantly raised, and back when they were reading Catcher in the Rye as sophomores it was Eren who looked at Armin like he was some sort of angelic being when he understood one of the bullshit metaphors. Jean didn’t really have anyone to look at like that, back then. It sort of set him up for his jerkoff personality, he guesses. After their falling out Armin never brought Eren up, bit Jean’s always wondered if Armin misses that monstrosity.

Carrying the box back out into the store, Jean lugs the damn thing past the desk and—Jean feels something wet splash across his ankle. He drops the box with an embarrassingly high shriek, the cardboard landing in the growing puddle of brown coffee that is filling the cracks in the floorboards. “ _Shit_ ,” Jean hisses, bending to pick up the mess. Levi will literally kill him if he can faintly make out a coffee stain tomorrow. Even if he smells it he’ll be on Jean like a bloodhound within minutes. Jean runs to the back room after putting the box somewhere safe, searching for the paper towels he knows Levi must have. He finds them in a cabinet and Jean whispers “gotcha” before grabbing them and hurrying back out to clean up. Bon Jovi’s rusty voice is still crackling from the corner as Jean cleans like Levi is breathing right down his neck. It isn’t until he stands up that he realizes.

On his desk, there’s a ring of moisture where Jean had set his coffee down on the middle of the desk. No where near where it now lies on the ground. Jean feels his cheeks go hot, ice spreading over his body. _What the hell_? His eyes look back and forth from where he set his cup down to where it is on the floor. Back and forth. How the hell.

Glancing at the clock, Jean sees he still has an hour and a half left of his shift. Too early to sprint out of here in complete terror.

He must have moved his coffee without remembering. There’s no possible way something could have moved it. He can feel himself calming down with that thought. All that matters is that Jean doesn’t have any coffee anymore and that he’s going to have to stay awake on his own pure willpower. Jean throws away the dirty paper towels behind him, still feeling like something is wrong. He tries to shake it off him again, but he can’t hide it from himself that he’s now uneasy in his tiny safe haven.

 

Sitting next to Hanji while she types on her laptop, Jean is stamping prices on books when he sees it. Only for half a second, but Jean flinches and Hanji’s fingers stop.

“What’s the deal, kiddo? Are the covers too scary?” Jean turns back to her, trying to laugh along when he looks down at the horror genre books he’s been stamping. The shadow that had moved slowly across the wall by the window is gone. There had to be a car passing—the shadow of a car. Sure. That’s it.

“I’m fine.” Hanji’s fingers start to move again, her fervent voice starting to make comments on the author of the book in his hands and basically reciting the Wikipedia article of his life story for ten minutes. Jean presses the stamp to the back cover, half listening. He can feel his attention still drawn to the wall where he saw the dark hint of something moving past. He must have seen something.

The fact that Jean is uncomfortable when he’s working alone doesn’t help with the fact that he’s started glancing through some of the novels in the horror section of the store, even the one he’s holding right now. The thick, terrifying ones with a collection of scary stories within their covers that make Jean want to curl up into a ball afterward. He knows it’s a complete dumbass move but he does it anyway, making sure to set the books back on their shelves before it gets dark. Which is also a dumbass move because then Jean is sitting there in the empty room going over the books in his head and psyching himself out. It’s all in his head, but it doesn’t stop him from grabbing his stuff and locking up with lightning speed as soon as the clock across the room ticks to ten.

Hanji stops with the author spiel but starts another one, this time about The Titans again. Jean starts to press on another price tag.

 

It’s not like Jean has put in any actual effort over his first summer out of school to reconnect with any high school acquaintances—working second shift was hard enough to make plans around, and Jean thought that maybe people might take the hint and give up. But suddenly Jean is invited to a party.

It’s not common—high school wasn’t his best time obviously and the people in it weren’t his favorites. And the few highschool parties he did go to ended up with him passed out drunk. But he got a text anyway from Connie that said that Christa’s girlfriend Ymir was throwing her a surprise party, and to ‘fucking be there, man’. Jean knows that there’s a chance that Jaeger could be there; Christa is friends with everyone, after all. But he says he’ll try to make it anyway after his shift.  
  
So another workday alone drags by, a day full of stacking the next month’s shipment and smiling at old people who buy even older books and trying not to think about the coffee incident, the shadows and the stupid feelings he’s been getting over these weeks. It storms like hell tonight—huge clouds that scrape up the sky into a churning mess—and the store gets even more shadowy and dark than before. Every corner whispers that there’s something hiding in it, every sound of the wind whipping against the windows echoing in the silence. Jean texts Connie to make sure that the party is still on, mostly just to occupy himself from looking around the room. Jean listens to the rain fill the gutters and the soft music that it plays on the roof, and settles into his chair.

As nearly no people enter the shop at all Jean puts on his music early. Finding an Iron and Wine disc, Jean puts it in the CD and tape player he brought here himself and then proceeds to stare out the glass windows at the shops across the street for some time. The rain dripping down the glass makes him start to feel even worse. He’s been by himself for a while now. This sanctuary gives him too much time to think. He feels like he needs to open the door and start running right into this summer storm just to try to feel something new again.

But instead he remembers Levi’s sticky note reminder on the counter that he has to sweep and sighs before moving to the back room. No one has come inside for two hours now, so Jean takes the liberty of being able to turn up his CD to a usually unacceptable volume. He and his broom sway with the slow songs as the sun goes down, utterly alone but happy somehow. The CD ends when Jean has only swept half the store, so he moves back over to the shelf of discs with a song in particular on his mind. He’s humming it a little to himself to fill the void of silence when the lights flicker for a moment in the already dim store. Jean feels it again; the sensation that makes him want to run out of here or check over his shoulder a thousand times. The storm clouds cover up the last of the sun and throw the room into a greenish light as the lights flicker back to life. Jean glances over his shoulder finally and laughs to himself; he’s an eighteen year old boy who’s afraid of being alone at his own job.

The rain pounds on the roof. He finds what he was looking for—a Frank Sinatra record. He turns on Fly Me to the Moon, the only one on the sleeve he knows, and goes back for his broom. After only a couple notes he is in such a danceable mood; so eager to move his feet in some way now that his board is broken and he hasn’t really got much else to get his feet gliding. And it helps to get his little jazzy steps get going with a laugh to himself when he remembers he’s going to be at a party later.

Jean switches on all the lights after stepping over to the beat of the bass guitar, rain streaks still dripping quickly down the store’s windows. He knows that passing cars can see him dancing through the windows in the man-made golden light, but as the floors creak with the movement of his feet Jean doesn’t give a damn if he’s dancing around St. Maria Books. He’s parading through each aisle. He’s singing loudly into his broom handle. He doesn’t even sound that bad while he serenades a woman’s face on the cover of a book.

He gallops around the room, belting out the chorus as the bookshelves become a screaming crowd. When he grasps that no one is going to be coming tonight, that he’ll just close up early and head out to the party, he sings louder while bringing the broom handle away so he can take a breath. Jean spins theatrically on his way to close the blinds, still singing the words totally in tune, his eyes closed as he finally hits the high note off key. He opens them—and his voice sticks in his throat. The boy’s smile is mocking, his hands in pockets, leaning against the side of the desk. Jean’s gaze flicks from the boy in the window’s reflection back to his own terrified eyes then back again, and then he turns around. There’s no one in the room. The song ends and the record stops playing.

 

Jean stands there, heart pounding, for a lifetime. He’s holding onto the broom handle for dear life and his eyes are locked on the spot where the person must have been. Jean’s heart doesn’t slow, but his mind starts to turn. There was a boy there. There’s no denying that. It wasn’t someone standing outside watching Jean make an idiot of himself. It was someone behind him, who somehow got inside the store and got past him and _what the hell is going on_. Jean tries to breathe once. Maybe he’s behind the counter.  
He takes one step forward, and the lights flicker again. Icy air moves over his body. Terror starts to take over for a few seconds. “Oh my god,” Jean says out loud, his voice cracking. He takes another step, moving so the end of the broom points out like a spear.

“Who the hell is in here?” Jean barks, coming toward the desk. Maybe the kid is hiding behind it, but how the hell did he get past Jean? That damn bell above the door. Or. No. Not even considering it. Jean cannot accept the idea that he could be working in a goddamn haunted bookstore.

“You’re not supposed to be behind the desk,” Jean says, walking forward still. He reaches the desk and peers around the side, ready to hit the intruder over the head with his makeshift microphone. But there’s only his hoodie tossed carelessly to the floor. Minutes have passed.

 

Jean lets his shoulders go slack. At least he finished sweeping before his insanity kicked in. His hands are shaking, and he decides that it’s best if he just left. He reaches for his keys and then turns to leave, more important things coming to mind. Like what present could he get Christa on the way there that could cost him little to no money? And how was he supposed to—

“Hey.” Jean jumps back in shock when he almost walks into a boy standing in front of him. Jean stumbles back five steps, trips on the tip of his shoe and falls backwards, the world falling away, only to be suddenly clear again and the boy who was standing ten feet away now holding him up in his arms. “Whoa, sorry,” says the voice above him, and Jeans looks up to see a smiling boy with tan skin and freckles dusted across his cheeks who _just teleported across a fucking room_. Jean screams, thrashing in his arms.

Jean’s head hits the ground after he falls and he stares up at the ceiling for a moment, his mind frozen on the feeling of arms supporting him seconds before. He then scrambles to sit up and whips his head in every direction, searching for the person who had caught him. Jean’s breath has gone heavy again, his arm’s impact with the floor causing some last unhealed scabs to start to bleed again. He can hear his heart hammering in his ears. Somehow finding the way to stand, Jean looks all around him again. “Anyone there?” Jean asks the air. There’s no response, of course. Without second thought, he grabs his hoodie and the keys from where they’d fallen to the floor, leaves the broom out and turns the light off, locking the door behind him and then sprinting in the rain the full ten blocks to Christa’s house.

He only stays at the party maybe fifteen minutes before it’s too much. Everyone keeps asking him why his clothes are soaking wet and he can’t stop thinking about the boy in the reflection and he ends his visit by giving his best wishes to Christa before making an excuse to walk home. Sasha ends up driving him home, a little tipsy and pissed at Connie for being the first one to get absolutely trashed. Jean didn’t see Eren there, but Annie was in the corner with a frown and a glass of water and Jean didn’t want to make eye contact, much less go over and call her out about the incident weeks before. He didn’t want her breaking his body instead of his board this time.

Armin looked heartbroken as Jean turned to leave, but then again Jean is disappointed in himself. He’s crazy, after all. A crazy person who thinks they may have seen some sort of teleporting ghost person at their job today. If only his mom cared enough to ask how his day was that night after Sasha dropped him off and he stumbled up to his room, panting.

“Work was great, mama.” Jean would throw his arms around his mother in their well-lit kitchen, his clothes freshly-pressed and his mother sober with cheeks glowing. “I think I met a ghost!”

 

Jean comes in the store at four on Monday petrified of the possibility of seeing something in there with him when he’s sitting alone. But instead, Jean gets to see something worse. He’s facing away from Jean, tall figure and boyishly wild hair sitting on top of the desk facing Levi. He turns when he hears the bell above the door ding and Eren Jaeger’s remains of a smile from whatever Levi said falls and turns to a death glare when he sees Jean has walked in.

“Afternoon, Levi,” Jean says, coming to the counter and moving to place his bag on the ground. He’s brought the new catalog of maneuverboards to gawk at and he didn’t want Levi commenting on it when he walked in. Now he’s extra thankful as he swallows anxiously. He has to force himself to remain civil. _Do not punch Eren in the face. Your hands just fully healed_. Jean looks down at the desk, taking off his hoodie and draping it around his chair. “Jaeger,” he acknowledges. It sounds like he’s trying not to gag. Which is totally happening.

“Hello and goodbye, brat. Try to actually clean up after your fucking self before locking up, next time.” Levi bites off his words, and Jean sits down and tightly nods. Don’t throw a punch. Don’t be the kid you were in high school.

“Why does Jean Kirschtein being a shit employee not surprise me,” Eren says, meant for Levi’s ears but _they’re two feet away from each other, seriously_. Levi grabs his paperwork off the desk and moves out from around the counter, Eren hopping off his spot on the desk like he’s landing one of his dumbass maneuverboard tricks. Then they meet in the middle and lace their fingers together. Jean’s face contorts into something he’s so glad they can’t see. That is so fucking weird. Isn’t Levi like, thirty?

Surprisingly, without any other sort of sarcastic comment from Eren, the door closes, the second shift begins and Jean lays his head on the polished wood. Of course his terrifying boss would date his worst enemy. Of course.

“It’s a shame Levi ended up with someone like him,” says someone next to him. Jean rips his head from the desk and to his left, where a freckle faced boy in a white t-shirt and faded jeans is facing the window. Jean is frozen, staring at the boy’s profile as his brown eyes watch them leave. “I’ve been watching him for all these years and you’d never think he’d go for someone so…angry? Reckless? You’d think that so much rage and apathy could only come from one person in a couple, not both.” The boy moves a little forward, turning the “JUST ARRIVED!” rack a little with his fingers. Jean’s fear turns to boiling hot anger as he watches the boy’s back.

“Who the hell are you,” he asks, not sounding like a question. The boy turns to Jean, wide eyed, and it’s then when Jean notices a small cut above the boy’s right eye.

“Marco Bodt.” he says, and then flashes a row of perfectly white teeth before he disappears into thin air. Jean stares at the place where he used to be before coming to his own conclusion and yelling into the air “you’re a fucking ghost, aren’t you? Am I talking to a fucking ghost? Or am I insane?”

“You could be both.” the voice comes from the other side of the desk, behind him. Jean spins his chair, his jaw going a little slack when he sees the ghost sitting on top of the counter next to him. The boy’s—Marco’s?—eyes flash with something like excitement before he hops back to the floor, his short dark hair cut into an undercut sort of like Jean’s, but a hell of a lot better. “I really didn’t know any better way to try to talk to you. Sorry I kind of scared you before.” Jean is glued to his chair, mostly because there is a ghost half a foot away from him but also because it’s bad how fast Jean’s heart is starting to hammer just from how close he is. It takes him half a minute to respond, and in that time Jean watches as Marco’s entire figure sort of shimmers into transparency before becoming solid again. He doesn’t seem to notice.

“Yeah, you scared me all right.” Jean swallows. He ends up laughing quietly in utter disbelief. There’s no such thing as ghosts. Yet there’s one sitting next to him.  
The fucking ghost boy laughs too, something that somehow makes Jean’s heart rate increase even more. But Jean’s brain is trying to turn so fast that the first thing he tries to say is a flurry of questions.

“So…it was you, with the shadows, and the cold air, and the flickering lights?” Jean finally looks him in the eye. Marco squints a little, considering.

“When I’m invisible, I guess you can still see my shadow, but then again what do I know.” Marco beams, looking right at Jean and waiting for his reaction, but Jean just stares. Marco adjusts his shoulders. “And the cold air; probably me walking by. But the flickering lights? Hm, nope, just shitty electrical wires.”

“And my spilled coffee?”

Marco’s eyes widen and he looks like he’s ready for Jean to stand up and start beating him over a spilled cup of coffee. “Oh, sorry.”

Jean starts to smile on accident.

“I had just reached over to see what it was. I wouldn’t—“

“It’s fine.” Jean is smiling now. He’s crazy. He’s crazy and he thinks the heat on his cheeks might be him blushing.

“What happened to your cheek?” Marco reaches a tan hand toward him and Jean immediately goes to grab his blushing face, only to realize that he meant the scabs. Marco’s hand retreats and curls into a loose fist. Jean stumbles through his sentence.

“Oh. I uh, I fell off my maneuverboard.”

“Your what?” Marco’s head tips a little to the side.

Jean sighs. “They’re basically skateboards. I’m just a little pretentious.” Marco waits, looking nowhere but Jean’s eyes. He can feel his cheeks grow hotter. “That kid that just left with Levi sort of helped with these. But it’s my fault I fell.” The other boy’s brown eyes widen and he turns toward the glass door, his eyes narrowing. Jean can’t stop looking at the tan boy’s jawline and he ends up trying to look anywhere else.

“Yeah. He’s an asshole. But hey, look what I have.” Jean feels a little twinge in his chest when he moves over to his bag and pulls out the new maneuverboard catalog he’d brought along. Jean sets it down on the wood in front of him and points to one on the cover. “These are maneuverboards.”  
Marco moves closer, almost too close, and Jean tells himself that _it’s fine, he’s fine, it’s just a ghost_ while Marco leans quietly over Jean’s shoulder to look.

“Skateboards have gotten a lot better.”

“You could say that,” Jean answers, confused. Marco continues to quietly look, for so long that Jean gives half a peek in his direction to make sure that the ghost boy is still there. Finally when it’s too much, Jean clears his throat and watches as the body next to him is gone and then reappears in front of the desk he’s sitting at.

While Jean sits in shock again the other runs a hand through his ghost-hair while eyeing the floorboards. Jean watches how the light from the windows don’t exactly hold onto his skin, sort of catches it halfway before passing through.

“I’ve never really done this before; I haven’t talked to anyone in forever. I’m sorry, I just…hi, Jean.” The boy looks up at him from an embarrassed glance at the floor through thick lashes, then shoves a hand for Jean to shake in his direction. As Jean reaches out to meet his hand, his confusion and anger stirs thickly together with something else he can’t seem to figure out.

“You know my name?” Jean asks. Marco’s hand feels like a hand, which confuses the hell out of Jean. Wasn’t he supposed to be—what, an apparition? A phantom? Why does his hand feel soft and real?

“Of course I know your name.” Marco looks genuinely hurt that Jean would think otherwise. “I see you around St. Maria’s now or then…a lot. All the time. I have nothing better to do, okay?” The boy pulls back and turns from real to just a shimmering mist within a few seconds, his eyes falling back to the floor. Oh.

“I’ve never done this before either…but um…do you know you’re see through right now?” a switch must have been flicked back on because Marco’s back into solidity. He smiles, a light air of something unattainable around the both of them.

“Sorry, that happens too.” Jean watches as Marco puts a hand in front of him, glances up at Jean’s bewildered eyes and back down to his hand, watching it dissolve into thin air. Jean’s mind is racing while the arm disappears. How the hell…?

Marco sees Jean looking like he’s witnessing the end of the world and his arm reappears. “I heard the music from the back room the other day and I came out here to see you and you were dancing and—“ Jean feels the blush creep up his neck further, staring at Marco’s tan face. “I know it sounds strange, I just—“

The bell above the door rings and Marco’s figure is gone. A middle aged woman and her daughter mill through the store as Jean leans back in his chair, trying to close his dry mouth, searching the room with his eyes to where Marco could be waiting.

He was watching him all this time? Jean did some weird shit on his days alone. And now he knows that a boy—a ghost—could have been watching him shimmy to Shakira while drinking a dollar soda.

 

Jean assumed that after the mother and daughter left empty-handed Marco would appear again, maybe on top of a bookcase like a bird or something this time, but nothing comes. Jean sits in the silence.

“Um. Hello?” He asks, certain that he’ll get an answer this time. Nothing.

“Marco?” Jean dares. Nothing but the gentle hum of a car passing outside. He settles back into his chair, rubs a hand over his face.

“All right, I’ll be here,” He gets up, grabs the nearest book of a shelf, and sits down again. He’s gone insane. Off the edge. Into the deep end.

 

Jean heads out for the night four hours later, his neck hurting from when he may or may not have fell asleep while reading a western romance novel out of sheer boredom. As he reaches the door trying to shake the sleep from his mind he thinks he feels a brush of cold air, then eyes over his shoulder. Somehow a smile comes to his face as Jean waits, pretending like he doesn’t feel it as he starts to open the door. He continues to fuddle around with the doorknob before whipping around and taking in Marco’s stunned face as his casual stance of leaning against the counter again is broken by him falling backwards to the ground. He noiselessly hits the ground as Jean lets out an embarrassingly loud laugh.

“How’s it feel like being snuck up on?” Jean says, excitedly bounding over to where Marco is still on the floor. He has been bored out of his mind all day and seeing Marco again sends a chill up his already insane spine. He spent the last hours half asleep, finally accepting his own insanity and deciding that yes, the thought of Marco the Ghost that he’s just met did give him butterflies of the weirdest kind.

“Apparently painful.” When Jean looks down at Marco’s grinning face he notices a trickle of blood on his forehead from the small cut he’d seen earlier, running down his cheek.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” He must have hit his head on the way down. Jean rushes to help Marco up—his skin isn’t cold this time either. Not human, but not cold and _dead_. Marco looks at Jean intently while Jean scrambles to get him upright.

“Yeah, I’m fine, I was joking.”

“You’re bleeding.”

Marco looks thoroughly annoyed while he looks blankly across the room. “So that’s starting again. It’s just this thing that happens…” Marco wipes his hand across his forehead and smears the blood. “Let’s just hope it doesn’t get any worse.” Jean opens his mouth to ask what the hell he’s talking about, but Marco turns slightly misted, his entire body partway falling through Jean’s fingers and Jean jumps a little. He doesn’t want him to disappear again.

“Whoa, don’t worry, I won’t ask questions.” Marco is already moving away from him. “Though there are many,” Jean adds with a breath of a laugh, eyeing the blood on Marco’s hand. Marco’s eyes shift toward his hand, then the ground.

“It’s late, Jean. I’d prefer if we talked when I didn’t look like this.” Marco retreats, going around the counter and toward the back room.

“Wait, you’re leaving?” Jean asks, following.

Marco speaks quickly and pointedly, moving further. “I can’t leave. But you should. Sleep well, Jean.” He vanishes while Jean is thinking up something to say in protest.  
“Goodnight,” Jean mumbles, looking all around the room for a sign of him before finally moving toward the door again. Jean finally calls “I’ll see you again, right?” into the store. He waits for a few seconds before hearing a voice next to his ear tell him “absolutely” before Jean knows he’s alone again.

On the walk home, he can’t stop the visions of Marco from flitting through his mind and he can’t stop breathing the summer heat far into his lungs. An actual ghost, talking to him. He hops up onto the curb, the corners of his lips refusing to fall back down. A dead person. A _boy_. He starts to walk faster. If he wanted to he could just keep walking into the night and be two towns over by morning, though he doesn’t think he wants to right now. Jean sighs to himself, the humid summer night sticking heavily to his lungs.

He’s met a boy who can disappear into thin air.

What a lucky bastard.


	2. Part Two

The first thing Jean learns about Marco is his taste in books.

He doesn’t appear on Tuesday, when Levi and Hanji are there, discussing rent and payments while Jean sneakily tries to eat Doritos and not get smacked by Levi (a plan in which fails miserably). But one moment Jean turns to stretch and check his phone for any messages and then next there’s a copy of The Great Gatsby sitting directly in front of him. Jean’s heart starts to pound, thinking that he might have taken it out and forgot about it and that Hanji is going to question his tidiness with the books and _he can’t lose this job, no way_. Jean stares at the cover. The last customer just left. Did they forget it? Come on, he would remember if someone forgot to take their book. He’s not that bad of an employee.

But then Jean feels a breeze of cool air behind him, and with a slight shiver remembers the boy who disappears. His hands clench a little into fists in front of him, bending his head down so no one could possibly see a hint of a smile. Jean then tentatively reaches for the paperback, turns it over in his hands, and then gets up and finds the right place where it should be in the Classics section. If Marco was sending him a message to read the book, it was Jean’s way of politely declining. And prompting the boy to just come out and talk to him. Jean doesn’t like admitting it to himself very much but he really wants to see him again.

 

Wednesday there’s no sign of Marco either, even though Jean is alone, counting his money and daydreaming of that bus ride that will take him far into the sticks at last. It’s a particularly busy day after about an hour, the sun is out in mid July and it seems like all the people in town are coming in. So Jean puts on a smile and pretends that he’s anywhere but here while he passes change across the counter.

Marco doesn’t materialize even when the darkness comes and the music is on. So after a day of pretending he didn’t care that the ghost boy was gone Jean leaves a random book on the desk with a note inside in a childish attempt at maybe getting Marco’s attention. “Where are you?” the note reads, tucked into the middle of the book and placed in front of Jean’s chair. He taps off the lights, about to leave, before deciding that the whole idea was stupid and coming back in to put the book away. He shoves the dumb note in his pocket and chastises himself the entire walk home. He’s clearly desperate for some excitement, desperate to see Marco again. He probably realized how big of an asshole Jean is from the amount of times he’s probably seen Jean reject Armin’s phone calls, or Connie’s texts, or how snappy he is with his mother. Jean’s blown it. He kicks a pebble across the street. Maybe alone was what he needed, anyway.

 

Thursday, the Great Gatsby is back on Jean’s desk and the book Jean had put back last night is stacked on top of it. Jean’s stomach jumps to his throat when he realizes, and he has to try not to look like he’s not buzzing with anticipation around Hanji and Levi as he carefully picks the books up. Jean opens to the inside of Gatsby’s cover, finding no note, no explanation. He flips through the pages, checks the back. There’s nothing but the eyes on the book’s cover glaring back at him with their sullen look. Jean doesn’t want to read this thing again. He didn’t want to in high school, and he doesn’t want to now, that’s for sure.

He doesn’t like reading all that much. It seems like lately the only books he could bring himself to read were those horror novels—which may have ruined his reading experience forever. Maybe the type of books he was forced to read made him think that all books were just as terrible, but he honestly doesn’t care enough to find out. So Jean gets up after listening to another one of Hanji’s stories and puts both of the books back. He pushes Gatsby back into his shelf hard, now hoping that Marco is watching. Stop playing games. _Just come out, goddammit._

 

And on Friday, Jean learns about pens. Or at least how they look when being controlled by a hand moving on it’s own to write the word “hi” across the corner of a maneuverboard catalog. Jean watches the pen move fluidly in the fingers, lifting slightly for the second letter, dropping back to the desk before the hand that wrote it disappears. Jean looks up to where he hopes Marco’s face is.

“You’ve been strangely absent lately.” The dark-haired boy himself shimmers to life in front of him, but only halfway before he’s just a cloud of mist that Jean can barely see.

“I know, sorry. I don’t really want you to see me like this.”

“Like what?”

“Remember that cut that I had on my face earlier?” Marco asks, his body fading out completely. Jean has to follow his voice as he soundlessly walks around the room.

“Yeah, I remember.” Jean says uncertainly.

“It uh, it gets a lot worse, sometimes. Right now it’s…pretty bad.” Marco’s voice is to his left, now. Jean whips around before he spots the shimmering again.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jean asks. “What did you do to make it worse? And hey, come on, it can’t be that bad. Can ghosts even get hurt?” Jean can feel himself becoming too sharp with his words, too angry, talking to empty air. “And why the hell are you even here in this store, and why do you only talk to me? Why doesn’t anyone else know about you? And how come you disappear all the goddamn time?” And then, after about fifteen seconds, there’s no response. Jean covers his face with both hands. Of fucking course.

After about ten minutes and no customers and Jean sitting utterly alone, Jean spots a tiny opportunity.

“And why The Great Gatsby?” Jean leans back in his chair, puts his hands behind his head. “I’ve read it before, it’s not even that great.”

“You’re joking,” Jean hears a voice from the other side of the room. From around one of the shelves, Marco peeks around, Jean only able to see the left side of his face. “You don’t like Gatsby?” Jean shrugs.

“I don’t get the symbolism that’s apparently obvious. To me it was just a book about a desperate guy who refused to let go of the past. Hello again, by the way.” The half of Marco that Jean can see doesn’t seem to catch the last part.

“Desperate? He _loved_ her. He knew that she would come back to him.”

“He could have done so many other things with his life other than dedicate it to someone who didn’t know he was alive.”

“It was his dream! He was always looking for her, always trying to find her,”

“He was borderline stalker.”

“He was being romantic!” Marco shouts, his eyes widening when they both realize that they’ve been raising their voice until it’s almost a scream. Jean kicks his feet onto the desk.

“So you were here this whole time. And you were just ignoring me?” Jean raises an eyebrow. Jean thinks he sees Marco’s ghost face actually start to flush. Can ghosts even do that?

“You seemed angry with me. But I don’t really have anywhere to go. So I just—“

“I’m not angry.” Jean says too loudly, and then clears his throat. That sounded a lot worse than he meant. “I’m just really confused, like, a lot.”

“You should be. I barely understand it myself.”

“Understand what?”

“How the hell I’m here.” Marco comes around the bookshelf, and Jean now understands what he meant by the fact that his cut had gotten worse. A chunk of flesh on the right side of Marco’s face is burned and bleeding, his black hair matted to his head with blood and “oh”, Jean breathes. He has to tear his eyes away from Marco’s mangled form for fear that his light lunch might decide to make a second appearance. Marco’s shoulder seems to be just as bad as his face, his upper right side charred. It makes Jean’s skating accident look like a paper cut.

“Yeah, that’s not good. I’ll help,” Jean says, rising from his chair, unable to look Marco in the eye.

“No, Jean. It’ll go away when it feels like it. Don’t bother—“

“I know Levi keeps towels in the back room, and I can just get some water, I’ll clean you up, just stay here,” Jean turns and rushes to the back room, thinking _half his face is practically gone and he acts like it’ll be fine_ while shaking his head to himself.

“Jean!” Marco yells behind him. Jean turns, expecting to find only half a boy when he turns back, but Marco’s gone to a mist again. “I’m dead already. A little blood for a couple days isn’t going to hurt me. I can’t feel pain anymore, okay? This is why I didn’t want to show you.” Jean lowers his raised shoulders.

“You need to tell me more about how this ghost thing works,” Jean says, and Marco grins, barely visible when he’s so transparent. “I’ve got plenty of time to tell you,” Marco says, the smile behind his voice. Jean’s lips tip up, feeling his stomach jump a little, and walks back over to the desk, careful not to walk into Marco’s half form as he passes.  
Jean opens his mouth to say something, he’s not sure yet exactly what. He still can’t get Marco’s bloody face out of his mind’s eye and he doesn’t know what to say about it other than _I’m sorry you get really bloody sometimes_. But the bell over the door chimes and Jean whips around to see an oblivious customer walk in with a burn-less face and all the blood in their body. He turns and stands behind the register on instinct, breathing hard. Half a minute later when he can process things again, he can’t help but move his eyes to where Marco was and feel his shoulders slump even more when he sees that of course he’s gone.

Marco comes back in a few minutes, when things are quiet again. Well, Jean can’t see him, but Marco sits next to him and tells Jean that the blood and stuff will heal up when it feels like it. That it’s better this way, them just talking for now. Jean agrees, and that’s the end of it.

Marco’s then asking him more about what he likes to do and Jean draws a blank at anything other than the maneuverboard catalog in his hands. He’s always been narrow-minded, but now he realizes just how shallow he really is. He tries to rack his mind for something—he must have liked something in school other than making snarky comments and whipping past people on his board.

“I used to play pranks on people.” Jean laughs under his breath. “Really pathetic ones, now that I’m thinking about it.” He then turns toward where Marco is, stares at the wall where his face might be. “Haven’t you been playing pranks in here?” Marco doesn’t miss a beat.

“No.” Jean raises his eyebrows.

“How could you not? You can turn invisible! It’s a given—”

“Actually, I am invisible. I can turn visible.”

“Oh.” It takes him a second to look back up at the wall. "You don’t do much around here, do you, Marco."

“I don’t mind it. I’ve gotten used to it.”

“But you’ve never tried to make some sort of contact with someone?”

“I’ve made some accidental fumbles around the place, but Levi or Hanji have never noticed. I haven’t spoken to any customers, no past or present employees.” Jean drums his fingers.

“Just me?” He waits.  

“Just you.” After the quiet consumes them and Jean can feel Marco’s eyes on him, he takes a deep breath and taps a pencil against the wood.

“But you never once pulled a prank. Haven’t you ever tripped someone? Made a thousand books fall off the shelves at once? Can you do that?”  
Marco laughs, and it’s light again.

“Don’t think that I can do that.” Jean looks at the wall until Marco speaks again. “Pranks? Yeah, I’m in.” 

 

Marco decides he loves getting into trouble over the next two days when he first ties a man’s shoelaces together and waits for him to fall to the ground in front of the woman he was flirting with. He ended up collapsing in the middle of the historical fiction section, and Jean turns away so he doesn’t starts laughing. Later when they laughed over it Marco just says “serves him right for trying to fill the romantic stereotype that every bookstore has” and Jean toasts the air with his water bottle to that.

When a middle-aged woman thinks she’s alone besides Jean, Marco blows on the back of her neck and watches as she slowly descends into paranoia.

“So good.” Jean murmurs as the woman turns to leave empty-handed. “Perfect execution this time, I give it a steady 7.5.”

“You’re kidding. That was record time,” Marco whispers, close to Jean’s ear.

 

It continues. Jean suggests something under his breath from this vicious mind of his and Marco does it without question. Another hipster kid walks in alone and Marco pulls two books off the shelf directly next to him. Jean relishes in the boy’s shriek of surprise and he still looks unsettled when he pays with the dollars out of his pocket. Jean has to try not to grin, ending in biting his lips too hard and probably scaring the kid even more.

Marco becomes louder as days together pass, the more he momentarily connects with others. He shimmers halfway to life more often before catching himself, speaks to Jean confidently about some customers he’s seen where he’s thought about talking to them over years. It’s like the danger of pranking triggered all his fears or self-conciousness to evaporate before Jean’s eyes, if only for a little while. He talks about books as well, not as obnoxiously as Hanji because Jean actually enjoys listening to it. Jean may not enjoy reading, but he enjoys Marco’s company. So he’ll listen to whatever he wants to say.

Jean moves to leave after a shift, having already said goodnight to Marco and assuming that he’d gone back to the back room or wherever he goes when Jean isn’t around. Jean pushes his hair back from his eyes, thinking he should get a haircut already when he’s falling down and catching the corner of the desk at the last second, holding himself up. Glancing down at what stopped himself, Jean sees his tied shoelaces.

“Marco Bodt, you are a dead man.”

“I already am!” Marco says from directly above him. His arm appears as the laughter continues. He reaches to help Jean back to his feet. But Jean just kicks off his shoes when he’s upright.

“I’m gonna kill you.” He reaches for the arm that’s fully there but it dissolves under his grip .

“Did you not hear me? Already dead!” He listens as Marco scampers away from him, only his voice giving Jean something to follow.

“Just fucking appear so it’s fair!” Jean yells. He runs into a corner of the store, stops dead in his tracks and waits to hear where Marco is now. Jean turns from a tap on his shoulder and _goddammit,_ this is like the sixth time he’s fallen for that.

He leaves ten minutes later after Marco’s done torturing him through pinching his arm and dodging his advances so that Jean’s hand passes right through the wrist he tried to grab. Marco laughs are like medicine to Jean’s tired eyes and his smile travels to his eyes when he says goodnight to him, this time for real.

When Jean is sprawled out on his foreign bed in his unwanted bedroom that night, the song that was playing in St. Maria’s before he left still stuck in his brain, Jean thinks about Marco. He has only heard his voice in the past week, but he still remembers. He remembers his broad but tall build, his brown eyes, what his smile looked like without the blood seeping into it. He can clearly picture his voice, or his hands, which Marco still showed sometimes because ‘they’re the least bloody, Jean’. And Jean can still remember what Marco looked like when he showed his wounded face. A walking dead person, a gory scene from a horror film. Jean pushes himself over onto his stomach and stares at the back of his closed eyelids. What the hell is his life right now? The only thing he looks forward to is going to work. It’s because of a boy who’s there with him, but it’s still _work._ Seriously, if Senior Year Jean looked at him now, he would’ve shook his head. And then downed an entire beer in under a minute.

 

Even though his friends have been trying—they still sometimes go hang out around town or go out to eat on weekends—most of his acquaintances from high school have better things than to worry about that one kid Jean Kirschtein. As they’re tuned out to everything but the coming wave of their college departures, Jean’s found it surprisingly easy to just work and sleep and avoid them entirely. And now, with Jean’s board broken and his only skill thrown out the window until he can afford a decent one again, he hasn’t seen Sasha or Connie in what felt like centuries instead of a few weeks.      

So Armin Arlert’s first steps into St. Maria’s are a bit like christening the place, because of course Jean cares about what Armin thinks of his job. Armin has been busy over the summer so far, getting ready for his successful future like the little scholar he is, but Jean had convinced him to come by this place and now he is. Armin promised after six, so Jean is sitting behind the desk with Marco next to him, watching the door like a hawk, his fingers tapping out nervous rhythms. It’s then when he gets a text that says that Sasha and Christa are coming too, maybe even Connie, who’s supposed to be working right now. Jean stares at the phone in disbelief as Marco stops twisting the buttons pinned to Jean’s bag.  
“Armin’s bringing some of my other friends.”   
“Really? That’s exciting,” Marco says, his shoulders lifting. Jean glares at the boy next to him, when really it’s such a relief that Marco is even letting him look at him again. His face is no longer charred or bloody, but flaky, half-healed and looking like it’s rotting around the edges. It’s not as bad as when Jean first saw it two weeks ago. Marco is finally comfortable with Jean looking at him again, even patched like a quilt like he once was. Jean is not complaining.

 Marco’s become a human contact junkie, with all his pranks that Jean’s inspired over time, doing anything and everything but flat out talking to people. Everyone but Jean, that is. No wonder he’s so excited about the idea of more people visiting his shop.  
“Are you gonna stay visible while they’re here?”   
 Marco looks a little shocked that Jean would even consider it. “Oh, I’ll leave if you want.” He tilts his head. “This is your big moment, after all.”

Jean catches his sarcasm and smirks. “You don’t have to leave.” Really, Jean is desperate to keep Marco near to him, even if they were only just talking about Jean’s petty problems again. Marco always sits through when Jean talks about anything with him, even if it is just mostly complaining about his mom, or past drama with Eren, or anything else. He always listens, laughs when he’s supposed to, and Jean tells more. It’s even better now that they can both see each other. Jean doesn’t want him to go. “Just stay here. You could pretend to be my co-employee.”

Jean can see the fear come into Marco’s eyes. “I-I don’t think I’m ready for that. You know, with my face being like it is. It’s easy talking with you, but with other people I could accidentally disappear or—“

“You could pretend you’re a customer,” Jean suggests. It takes Marco a second to get his shoulders to relax, to stop playing with the collar of his white t-shirt.

“Sure, I can do that. A fly on the wall, that’s me.”

Jean points a finger and tries to hide his grin. “No pranks though, ghost boy! These aren’t middle-aged hipsters that deserve it, these are my friends.” Marco crosses his heart.

“No pranks. They just can’t stay that long…I can’t leave, remember?” Jean nods again while sucking in air, anxious even though it’s just his closest friends. And his ghost with sparkly eyes and big smiles that he likes more than his job. Jean can’t bring himself to look up again. Marco touches his arm and Jean’s breath catches.

“You’ll be fine. It’s your job; you don’t need to impress them.” Marco glances down at where his hand is barely touching Jean’s arm. “Oh, you’re really warm, wow.” Jean looks up at him, follows the burns that draw patterns across his speckled face. It’s just a thing that happens. Jean doesn’t understand it, but it’s part of him.

They’ve gone into that silence again.

“Thanks, Marco. For the first part.” He moves his arm away and moves to go put on some music that his friends might like, Marco spinning in Jean’s desk chair until his ghost-brain gets dizzy.

  
 Half an hour later Jean watches Marco thumb some pages across the room while Sasha finds the CDs and cranks a new one up. Armin looks fascinated with every cover, and Christa has quietly retreated to the few resale anatomy books. She ends up buying one of the five books left, and when she’s paying Jean jokingly points to the tip jar and she graciously places a quarter inside.   
Sasha bounds over with Connie after the CD she’s put in starts to rock the floor, and leans over the desk.  
“It’s a little creepy in here,” Connie shouts over the counter.   
“Yeah, it grows on you.” Jean’s eyes flick to Marco’s back across the wooden floor. “Like a disease,” he adds.

Sasha leans further over the counter, admires her red painted nails and finally drags her eyes to Jean’s deadpan gaze.

“Who’s the hottie with the body over by the classics, Kirschtein?” she waggles an eyebrow.  
“I…have no idea,” Jean answers.  _Shit._  
“Yeah, right. I’m sure he’s a regular here, if you know what I mean.” Jean pretends to open his mouth in shock while the blush starts to creep up from his neck. “Well, he seems a little dirty to me, you know? That shirt looks so faded. But hey, he looks your type.”

“Thanks so much, Sasha.” Jean glances down at his own clothes. Ripped skinny jeans and his red t-shirt loosely around his shoulders. A dirty high school graduate. But Marco? What was Marco exactly?

“You might miss your chance. Go on, give him that old Jeanie charm.” She glances to her boyfriend behind her, and Armin, who’s just come up with three books in his arms. “Come on Connie, let’s give him some privacy. Gotta have the right mood. We’ll call you both!” and then she and Connie are linking arms and walking toward the door, talking about where they’ll go for food after sunset.

Jean stares after them, watching in envy as Sasha hops on Jean’s dream-board and they both sail into the afternoon summer sun. Armin pays for his books—compliments his amazing job and Jean agrees whole-heartedly, and then plans for a movie after his shift.

After they’re gone, Marco glides back over, says “Sasha seems nice,” and Jean’s face turns the color of his shirt.

 

He and Armin go to see an action movie late that night, where there’s a gunshot every six seconds and the plot is so dry and overdone that Jean doesn’t hesitate to turn his attention away from the movie so that he can start a conversation. They’re in the back row, and the place is nearly empty, but Jean still keeps his voice hushed.

“Hey, um,” Jean has been aching to tell Armin about Marco for weeks now. It’s not something he can say without sounding even crazier than Armin already thinks he is, but it’s not something he can sit back and not tell anyone about. But as soon as Armin turns away from the screen Jean knows he can’t do it. “Are you gonna eat that?” Armin glances down at the half-filled bucket of popcorn and hands it to Jean wordlessly. Half a minute goes by of Jean nervously shoving popcorn into his mouth while wondering how he’s going to say it.

“I made a friend at work.” Jean murmurs. The movie is in its mock-dramatic sequence, so it’s quiet enough for Armin to hear him.

“I thought only the clean-freak guy and annoying girl worked there?” Armin’s heard more than his share about those two, through Jean’s rambles and complaining. Maybe he could’ve referred to them as something better; it’s true, though. Jean knits his eyebrows together.

“Um, no. Someone else is there.”

“They hired someone?”

“No.” Jean nearly jumps out of his seat at another gunshot and spills his handful of popcorn. Armin cracks up.

“Was it that guy that Sasha was talking about? You kept looking over at him.” Jean sighs. He can’t do it.

“Yeah. That’s him.” Armin smiles at him.

“Your charm worked, I guess.” Jean laughs nervously, turns toward the movie again. He can’t do it. He can’t be that crazy person who says they see ghosts and then admits that they like one, too.

 

Jean enjoys the days that are cloudy and Levi and Hanji don’t stop by. Marco stays behind the desk next to him and Jean pulls out Levi’s chair for him to sit, so Marco doesn’t have to stay sitting on top of the desk like usual. They stamp books together; Jean downing his coffee and Marco’s mended hands taking the stamped ones and organizing on the bookshelves them so Jean doesn’t have to later. Marco’s face is completely healed; his arms smooth again, his white button-up spotless. Jean glances at him a lot when he’s not looking. 

Marco talks from across the store. “It’s strange, actually doing some work in here. You know, with someone actually knowing I’m helping.”

“You’ve been helping out in the store before?”

“Hanji used to be really irresponsible,” Marco laughs, and Jean smiles toward him. “I helped dust and stuff. Easy things. Reorganized books that customers had put back wrong. That sort of stuff.”

Jean feels his hands shake a little, his stomach raise to his throat. All Marco’s doing is glimpsing at him from between shelves. Control yourself Jean, dammit. “You didn’t get any recognition for your hard work?” Jean asks. Marco shakes his head. Jean stamps another book. “And you never spoke to them.”

“No.”

“Anyone?” Jean can still barely believe it.

“No. No one but you.” Jean feels it again.

“I should feel special, then.”

“Yes, you should.”

Marco puts the books into their places, the clunk of books finding their home the only noise between them. A group of people come into the store and Jean watches as Marco stays where he is, unmoving, a normal solid human. Jean watches in awe. It’s the first time in the last week that Marco has let himself be seen by strangers, who don’t acknowledge him while they search through the romance novel section. Jean feels his lips tipping up. If only they knew they were walking past a ghost right then. He gazes at the boy’s back, his white t-shirt riding up when he reaches for the top shelf, and then finally moves his eyes back to working, though his hands sit there unmoving for a minute before he realizes what he’s doing.

 

 

Levi is sitting with his heels on the desk again at the beginning of shift, something that Jean would get chastised for after half a second if Levi ever caught him. Levi’s phone buzzes and Hanji looks up from her computer.

“Texting during work hours now, Levi? What else has that kid done to you?” Hanji giggles to herself. Levi glowers at Jean when he sees he’s looking.

“I told the little shit not to,” he says, but starts clicking back on his phone anyway. Jean still can’t take it seriously. It’s been more than a month and Levi is still dating Eren Jaeger. He couldn’t believe it before and he couldn’t believe it now. He even had to message Sasha asking if it was true. And it was.

The phone buzzes again a minute later. Levi grabs it with lightning speed as Hanji starts to turn around.

“How did you two meet?” Jean can’t stop himself from asking.

“No personal questions, maggot.” Jean senses zero hostility in his voice, however, so maybe he won’t get fired. He didn’t even swear.

“Sorry,” Jean apologizes. And then he waits.

“House party.” Levi mumbles. Jean stays silent. Levi goes to _parties_.

“How precious,” Hanji says. Another minute of tension-filled silence. Jean can’t stop himself from saying;

“He’s a special guy.”

“I know you guys hate each other. He’s told me plenty. I know he fucked up your face but what I do with him isn’t any of your business. I’d appreciate if we didn’t let your damn petty drama interrupt the three seconds of quiet.”

Jean leans back into his chair. The three seconds turns into half an hour. Then Hanji starts talking.

 

 

Jean gets in a fight with his mom late at night on a Friday, when he’s just had a beer at Connie’s and just wants to collapse in a pile of his own misery. When Connie gets alcohol in his system he just gets even more insane, but Jean usually ends up crying and talking about how shit his life is. Which is what would have happened if Jean didn’t decide to go home and sleep his problems away instead. But Jean’s mom comes rushing in angry like a spilling tital wave, demanding to know where he was, why the hell he hadn’t called, and _why he’s so irresponsible all the damn time_. And Jean gets up and leaves. Using the backpack that he hasn’t picked up since high school ended, Jean stuffs in clothes and some food he has in his room and heads out the door to the only place he can think of.

The night is thick and Jean feels like he’s being watched under the streetlights as he briskly walks the nine blocks with his hood up. Why _is_ he so irresponsible all the time? Why doesn’t he care about his future? His dream of leaving his boring life has no real promise in it. Why is he such a screw up? _You’re going nowhere, Jean Kirschtein._

Jean’s fingers reach for the keys in his hoodie pocket before bounding up the few steps and hastily going to unlock the store’s doors. The light above the door just barely illuminates his fingers, and Jean realizes that his hands are still trembling from how anxious he is. He rushes into the store, turns on the light, throws his backpack at the ground and claws his hands at the back of his neck. _What is he going to do_? He’s been working for two months and he doesn’t have enough to leave and make it out there where he wants to be, and his mom is just going to be even more pissed off when he comes back home like the sad puppy he is. His throat is dry from Connie’s beer and all he wants to do is break something. He ends up just kicking his backpack across the room.

“Are you okay?” Marco asks, sitting on top of the desk like Jean’s never left. Jean looks at him while he tries to get his breathing even.

“No,” Jean says, his eyes wide, staring at the stray hairs that frame Marco’s ghost face and then his collarbones that peek from his white button-up. His breath is still coming too fast. “I think I’m sleeping here for the night.” 

Marco’s concerned gaze starts to soften.

 “Mind if I keep you company?” Marco asks.

 “That was what I was hoping,” Jean says, his shaking hands searching for something to do. He bends down to file through his backpack, finding only a change of clothes, some food and his envelope of money he has so far.

“This isn’t enough,” Jean says, mostly to himself.

“You’re running away?” Marco questions. Jean looks up. 

“Oh, no. Tonight’s just a little vacation.” He tries his best to smile. “I just didn’t bring a lot of food. I’m starving.”

 

One hour and a trip to get snacks later, Jean has found himself a place behind the store’s desk to lay his backpack like a pillow. Marco is leaning against the wall so that they’re facing each other in the faint lighting. Jean offers him a chip, to which Marco raises an eyebrow.

“You’re forgetting an important fact about me, Jean.”

“What, ghosts can’t eat either? You can’t eat and you can’t leave, what can you do?” Jean hands Marco a chip anyway. He takes it carefully, and rolls it in between his fingers.

“And now you see the problem. I can’t really do much at all. I told you what I used to do. Clean or read, mostly.”

“Convenient that you got put in a bookstore, huh?”

“I guess so.” Marco shifts himself so he’s in a position that can’t possibly be comfortable, his head tilted against the wall. He doesn’t seem to be complaining, though.

“Why _are_ you here?” Jean eats another chip. Marco flicks his chip at Jean’s foot.

“That’s a fact I don’t know.”

“Well…do you know how you…” it is the first time Jean has found his bluntness fading, uncertain of how to word it. How do you ask someone how they died?

“Nope. And you don’t need to dance around the fact that I’m dead, Jean.” The last few words almost make Jean cringe. He doesn’t like the sound of those words together.

 “I know I died in 1957, in the fall. When I first woke up in the front doorway of St. Maria’s I ran to check a calendar. October 1st, 1957.” His eyes look almost glazed, recalling a memory that makes him squirm a little where he’s sitting. Jean’s chip sits unchewed in his mouth. “Then I started pleading with the owner to tell me what happened and why I was dripping with blood and why I couldn’t feel a thing. But he couldn’t see me.”

“But I can see you.”

“Yeah, seventy years gives you some time to figure out some things. Like how to become visible. And be heard. And touch things. Basically just attempt to control the limbo.”

“Limbo?”

“Haven’t you heard the song?” Jean stares, narrow-eyed. Marco breathes out. “I’ll find it for you. Basically, I’m sitting in limbo. Not alive, that’s for sure. If I were alive I’d probably steal that bag from you and empty the entire thing into my mouth.” He laughs to himself, until it dies out and he’s left looking into blank space. “But I’m not dead. I can still think. I can still feel.” He looks like he’s trying to remind himself of this. “But you saw it yourself. Sometimes I get really bad, with the injuries I had when I died. I’ve figured out that that must be part of it. I’m dead, but I’m still here. I don’t know what changes the limbo, but it happens.” He looks up at the ceiling now, the light falling on his cheekbones and Jean can’t move. “When I have my whole face, and my whole body, I get this feeling. It almost feels like I’m really alive. Like right now. But when the limbo comes back again… sometimes it feels like I might just disappear all together.” Marco looks back down at Jean from where he was staring. His eyes are a little misty. “Sorry. It sounds different talking to myself then out loud.”

“You had to learn to be heard? And seen?”

“I used to have to try focusing my energy on my mouth to make it visible or to make sound, but obviously I’ve mastered it now. I don’t even have to think about it, it just feels natural, especially around y—“ he cuts himself off. Jean tries not to notice.

“It’s all…amazing,” Jean says. It sounds too much unlike himself. So he crosses his legs and raises an eyebrow at the other boy. “Do the arm thing,” he jokes, trying to make up for how soft he sounded a moment ago. Marco raises an eyebrow right back, disappears and reappears right next to Jean, their legs touching. Marco’s eyes flit twice to Jean’s and then back to his right arm.

“Ready? Now I just focus on it and—” Marco’s arm disappears. Jean reaches out to touch empty air.

“So you’re gone completely?” 

“No, I’m there. You just can’t touch me, for whatever reason.” Jean stares.

“Did I ever walk through you?”

“Yep.”  
“You probably enjoyed it.” Marco hides a grin and Jean crumples his empty chip bag against Marco’s face.  
“Perv.”

 

Another hour passes. Marco shows Jean how every part of his body can disappear and in the spirit they even play invisible hide and seek, where Jean yells “Marco” into the air and Marco has to answer back “Jean” until Jean finds him. They realize how pointless their game is when Jean yells “wait, shit” and they realize there’s no way for Jean to tag Marco if he’ll end up walking right through him. Marco just ends up scaring him from behind and Jean declares another re-death threat.

Then they’re sitting sprawled out on the ground in the center of the room.

“I still can’t believe you never talked to anyone.”

“You can’t exactly just pop out of nowhere and mention that you’re dead and have been watching them for years.”

“Yet here we are.” Jean doesn’t mean for his voice to sound so childish and happy for a moment, which is exactly what he feels right now. Marco squints, bumps his boot against Jean’s sneaker.

 “All right. You’re turn, Jean Kirschtein. What is it like to be alive?”

“Not that bad, not that great. There’s a lot of pain, suffering, feeling alone.”

“I guess I’m not missing out on much.”

“I’m just bitter. I’m sure you loved being alive. You seem like you would enjoy it.”

“Maybe I would.” Jean feels a hint of jealousy brewed with sorrow about the dark haired boy then. Never doing anything. But not having to put in the effort of being alive. He has it good, even if he wishes he were breathing.

“Next question. What brought you to working in a haunted book shop?”

“I’m here for the ghost boys and good pay, obviously.” Marco tips his head a little, his eyes a mix between fondness and disdain. Jean tosses an empty bag of snacks to the garbage, making a smooth dunk that he can’t help but smile over. “I want to leave town and live on my own. But I was a lazy asshole all through high school and now I don’t have enough to afford a place of my own. So now I have a summer job.”

“Why do you want to leave?”

“I’ve lived in the same two bedroom house my entire life with a mom who wants nothing more than to get rid of me. I need to find someplace better. This place can be suffocating, you know.” Jean breaks open another bag, now massive package of M&Ms. He eats to fill the empty air as he feels Marco watching him. He doesn’t want to go into detail of needing a new start, of needing people who don’t know about what a failure he is and will actually give him a chance instead of writing him off like always.

“Tell me about it.” Marco’s voice tears into Jean’s insides. He realizes what he’s done and tries to save it through a mouthful of chocolate.

“Then again, what am I saying? You’ve been stuck in here for what, 70 years?”

“74,” Marco corrects.

“And you can’t go anywhere.”

“I can go out back, in the alley. I watch the stars sometimes there.” Jean looks up at the wooden beamed ceiling, imagining there’s tiny twinkling stars above him. He could see Marco enjoying that sort of stuff. “Sorry if that sounds lame.”

Jean laughs to himself. “You’re not lame, Marco.” Marco’s solidity shimmers with embarrassment when Jean glances at him. While he’s just a mist, Jean says it. “I can see right through you,” Jean breathes. “It’s like you’re not even real.” 

“Thank you for reminding me.”

“No, I didn’t mean—” Marco smiles again.

“I know.” Jean keeps eating. Marco seems content with just looking into the distance only he can see. “Do you really not like The Great Gatsby?” It’s been a while since that conversation; Jean knows he’s forgotten about it. He shrugs, settling down onto his stomach on the floor. “Then what’s your favorite book?” Jean shrugs.  
 “I don’t know. I don’t really have one.”   
 Marco disappears and then materializes by the shelf next to them, pointer finger dragging along a row of spines. Jean gets to his feet, coming close next to him.

“We’ll start with this one,” Marco says. Jean glances at the cover.

“Looks boring.” Marco jokingly pretends to slap Jean across the head with the hardcover he’s holding.

“Don’t insult the ghost boy’s favorite books.”

 

Another hour flies by them both, and Jean is on the third chapter of Marco’s recommendation when he sees Marco place down a horror novel that Jean is forcing him to read and move across the room to sit by Jean’s feet.

“I’m scared.”

“You’re a ghost, you’re not supposed to get scared.” Jean turns his page. Marco comes up next to him, where his close proximity would have thrown Jean off before, but now he welcomes it. 

He closes his book after Marco’s there for too long, looking at the boy’s buttoned nose and his petal lips before reminding himself that words do exist and that now would be a good time to use them.

“So you control the limbo.” Marco sighs. It’s not Jean's fault that he has questions. 

“Sorta.” Jean lifts and eyebrow, then puts both his hands under his chin, waiting.

“The first day I showed myself to you, when I was watching you dance, I was controlling the limbo on accident. I didn’t know you’d see me.” The silence is heavy. “Maybe that’s why I feel different talking to you.

“And because you loved my performance,”

“Well, Fly Me to the Moon is one of my favorites,”

“It’s the only one by him that I know.”

“No way.” Jean blows air through his lips. Marco bumps him with his shoulder. “I know what to do for the rest of the night.” Marco is suddenly by the record player. “You, Jean, are going to be educated on how we did it in the 50s.” The radio cracks to life and Frank Sinatra’s familiar voice waves through the air. Marco dramatically dims the lights, slicks a hand through his hair like a greaser and then reaches out a hand. “Mr. Kirschtein? I was most likely Homecoming king of my school dance 70 years ago, let me remind you. My dancing was probably an honorable mention.” He’s holding out a hand.

“Oh, how prestigious. Though I’m sure you’ve noticed I’m more of a solo dancer myself,” Jean insists, but Marco’s ghost fingers are solid when they grip him and raise him to his feet. Jean sighs heavily even though he’s hyperaware that Marco is holding his hand and is reaching out to hold the other one.

“Now just keep stepping like this.” After trying to actually teach Jean a few jitterbug steps, Jean ends up disregarding the steps and leading then around the room while a song he’s never heard before plays through both of them. The voice sounds familiar, but this time Jean isn’t alone, the blinds are closed, and Jean is coyly dancing with a taller boy smiling down at him. Marco solidity is unyielding. The light doesn’t even pass through him anymore. The limbo is balanced, it seems. No wonder he’s in such a good mood.

 Marco starts to sing along, his voice mingling in the air between them as Frank harmonizes. He’s damn good, too. Jean grabs Marco’s waist as they switch dancing positions and joins in the singing, his teasingly bad voice obviously ruining it, moving them in a waltz around the creaking floor.

Marco sings while looking right at Jean, voice loud and unashamed, and Jean looks up at him with a pathetic poker face before he grins, twirling Marco out and then back in and swaying them side to side again.

They dance the next two songs together, their playfulness slowly deteriorating into them, head on each others shoulders, swaying side to side, hands clasped together. It’s the best feeling Jean’s had in a while.

“You’re not even cold,” Jean whispers. Maybe it’s just his own heat radiating back. The blush on his cheeks. He thinks he saw a hint of the same color find its way up Marco’s face, but it might have been his imagination.

“I’m dead. It’s okay if you tell me I’m cold.” 

“But you’re not.”

“You flatter me.” Marco steps back and twirls Jean as the song ends in a smooth stretch of violins, while Frank sings about how much he likes the way Jean looks tonight. Jean breathes out slowly and Marco twirls him back in. Almost without realizing, Jean’s twirls too far and his lips totally accidentally brush Marco’s cheek in a half-open mouthed attempt of a kiss. He then laughs when Marco’s solidity wavers to almost invisible and Jean’s hands fall through.

“What was that for,” Marco says, not a question.

“You’re real. No questions asked.” Marco looks like he’s just been shot, and Jean thinks he might have broke him, but then Marco comes back to him and takes his hands again. He clears his throat and pretends like nothing between them has changed as he starts with rigid jitterbug steps as the next song’s chorus kicks in. Jean feels his cheesy grin start to falter.

 

He keeps asking Marco about things. He can’t help himself. The dark haired boy and his button nose and the freckles that cover him are so fascinating and Jean wants to know all about him tonight.

“I was about to graduate, I know that. When I died I was about to graduate and try to join the police.” Jean glances down. Marco’s hand is resting on top of his, like it has been for minutes. Neither of them has said anything about it. It isn’t hot and isn’t cold. Jean can’t get over Marco’s ghost hand and how un-ghostlike it feels. Marco feels alive. Even if he isn’t warm, or if Jean can’t hear him taking any breaths. “I must have been in here when it happened, that would explain why I’m trapped. And the burns must have been a fire. Maybe a fire killed me. But I don’t get any of it, I don’t remember.” He’s obviously not familiar with talking about it because he covers his face with his hands and rubs the heels of his palms into his eyes. Then he senses Jean’s quiet and faces him. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Jean feels his face contorting into a look of apprehension. He forgot that he was supposed to ever do anything besides sit with Marco forever; it takes him a moment to think of anything besides the boy next to him. 

“I’m an adult already, you ass.” Jean says, the affection behind his snarky voice shining through, and Marco giggles. “I think I might want to be in the police, too.” Jean murmurs. “After I’m done fucking around with my life. When my mom drags me back home.”

“You should. Though I haven’t read up on how the profession has changed over the years.”

“Is that how you figure everything out? With you know…the future and everything.”

“I read Hanji’s papers over her shoulder all the time. It helps, but I don’t—“

“But you don’t know anything else? Who’s the president?”

“Um….is it a Kennedy?” Jean balls Marco’s t-shirt in his fist while he cracks up.

“Oh my god Marco you’ve been living under a rock!”

“I’m dead, Jean. I’ve been dead-ing under a rock. I’ve been dead in a bookstore with little to no information unless I’m looking for it.”

“You need to be educated!”

“And you need dance lessons.”

“I was great, shut up.” As Marco’s smile grows huge, Jean feels a blush creep into his cheeks again. Since when could someone do this to him? Marco shifts so they’re facing each other again, waiting for Jean to say something. Jean finally feels it coming.

“Why talk to me? Why not Levi or Hanji? A customer?” Jean asks. Marco stares holes into him, not angrily like Eren or his mother, but intently, like he’s searching for an answer. So is Jean.

“Because I don’t want to disappear with you.” It takes him another second to say it. “I don’t have to _try_ to control the limbo with you.” Jean feels like he sees a thousand stories behind Marco’s eyes, but the biggest thing he sees right now is his own reflection gaping back. His own solidity might be fading from how soft Marco’s gaze is. And then Jean’s cell phone rings.

It’s his mother, finally calling, and Jean places the phone back down on his desk after he’d rushed to his feet to see who it was. He’ll deal with her in the morning. He’s eighteen and he should be able to leave a house that’s barely his without his mother’s permission. He glances at his phone one time more. It’s 3:30 in the morning, and he can feel a hint of sleep in his eyes. Walking here near midnight seems like days ago.

 

Another hour passes and the sky has turned teal at the edges. Marco’s never properly seen a cell phone before, so Jean hands it to him and lets him play with it for a little. The touch screen really gets to him, and the text alert from his mom questioning his quiet makes Marco nearly throw the thing across the room and disappear. They laugh until Jean cries and he has to go into the corner of the room to get all his giggles out before he can face Marco again. But then the exhaustion kicks in.

“Tell me more about being a ghost,” Jean says. He sounds foolish and tired, which he is.

“I think you’ve heard a little too much about me tonight.”

“Oh come on, we’ve got like, three hours until sunrise. We’ve got to fill them somehow.” He’s lying on his back, arms on either side of him. He’s trying to count how many dust particles he can see in the air from the light of the lamp, his heart slowing. Marco is sitting cross-legged next to him, reading again.

“Then go to sleep,”

“What, and leave you here to watch me?” Jean sits up, giving up his game. “Forget it.” Remembering, he claps his hands together. “All right, it’s education time.”

Marco slides the book across the floor away from them. Jean scrolls through his phone.

“I won’t judge you, just take a guess. Now, who is this?” he turns his phone back around. Marco rolls his eyes.

“Frank Sinatra. I think I’d know the guy I was crushing on when I died.”

Jean raises his eyebrows. “So you do remember some things!”

“Bits and pieces, I guess.” Jean has to tear his eyes away from Marco’s expression filled with anticipation back to his phone.

“Okay, who’s this.” 

Instead of answering, Marco puts a hand to his chest and starts to sing ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend’ while Jean almost wishes he had never showed a picture of Marilyn Monroe. Jean has to pull Marco back down before he stands up and starts singing louder.

“Okay, you got that one.” Marco crinkles his nose before finally breaking off his final note into a fit of giggles.

Jean continues to teach him like that, until Marco is staring frustratingly at a picture of Brittany Spears and Jean has to bite his tongue to keep from laughing.

 

The sun turns a crisp pink and Jean’s eyes open, the world coming back to him. He’s lying on the floor, backpack as a head rest against the wall, Marco reading next to him. Jean must have fell asleep before he picked one out, because Marco’s eyes stare intently at the pages of a book, no air entering or leaving his lungs. Jean’s last memory is them doodling on a piece of notebook paper while Jean’s eyes got heavy, and then he must have fallen asleep. Marco doesn’t see he’s awake yet.

 Jean watches his movements without realizing. His long fingers as they turn the pages of another novel. His flawless skin that was plastered with burns a week ago that is now half transparent and gorgeous. Jean looks on as Marco’s jaw tightens sometimes when he swallows. His watches his eyelashes flutter. _Goddamn._  

Even after telling himself not to do it Jean can’t prevent himself from saying “Hey, Marco?” and watching as Marco turns his head toward him, stunned. He must have forgotten that Jean was even there.  Jean smiles drowsily up at him. “Is it strange that last night was the best I’ve had in a while?” Marco’s shoulders fall. 

“It was my best, by far.” Marco says, beaming down at him before turning a page of his book. Jean is so tired, having only slept for probably an hour on the floor. Maybe that’s why he’s not nervous about saying any of this. Maybe it’s all just a dream that he’ll wake up from in thirty seconds, now that he’s aware of it.

“I’m sure you had better, when you were alive.” Jean yawns out the last word, his eyes drifting closed again.

“I don’t think so.” Marco takes Jean’s hand earnestly, quickly and without even looking at the other. Jean’s eyes snap fully open again. Marco’s looking back at his book like its not happening, but Jean can see the fear of realizing what he’s just done in his eyes. His hand is soft like when they danced last night, solid and sure. Jean looks at Marco’s hand with searching eyes. During those times that Marco disappears, his hand is gone. Jean’s fingers would pass right through and he wouldn’t even know he’s there. Jean takes a second to enjoy the feeling of Marco’s hand in his before he might just be gone altogether.

“I opened up that window, I hope you don’t mind. The sky’s just really beautiful,” Marco says, not even glancing up and still holding tight to Jean’s hand. Jean scoots up so he’s sitting next to the dark haired boy, careful to not break their grip on each other. The sky _is_ beautiful, a shade of pink mixed in with the light blue and the sun’s light barely visible through the buildings.

“Sure is.” He can feel Marco’s back stiffening next to him when he scoots a tiny bit closer, which makes him bite back a smile. He barely waits to say it. “One last question.”

“Yeah, Jean?”

“When was the last time you kissed someone?” Jean asks quietly. He can hear Marco swallow.

 “Over seventy-four years ago, I would imagine.” The clock on the wall behind them ticks twice. “You?” He turns another page even though his thoughts are obviously anywhere but in the story.

“Tenth grade.”

Marco closes his book, and then Jean does the unthinkable. He stares at the pink sky outside the glass, tells himself to do it and then turns to press his lips to Marco’s before he can stop himself. It’s enough to shock both of them and their hand hold to break. Jean’s drowsiness is out of the question when Marco makes a tiny noise of surprise before kissing back against him. His lips feel real, hell, he _is_ real, he’s just not warm but that doesn’t matter; he’s the warmest person Jean’s ever met and he just _needs him_ _to know that_. Marco moves, moves so that their heads aren’t at an awkward angle and so he can bring a hand up to Jean’s face. Marco moves his lips slowly, like he has all the time in the world, which Jean supposes he does. But Jean is hungry for it, has wanted to do this all night since they danced in the golden glow from the lamps and now the floor creaks again when Jean leans forward to kiss Marco deeper. In the silence of the morning the only noise is when Jean breaks for a breath before diving back in, Marco’s tongue brushing his bottom lip and Jean’s lets out a tiny moan of approval before he falls face first onto the floor.

“Oh my god oh my god Jean I am so sorry,” Marco says, reappearing and now kneeling next to Jean. “I’m sorry I got nervous and I—” he bubbles over with nervous laughter. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’ve wanted to kiss you since I first saw you, I just didn’t want something like this to happen, with me going crazy and ruining it, it was really funny though, I’m so sorry Jean I’m sorry,” Marco picks Jean up off the floor and Jean reaches for his bashed nose, also trying to hide his flushed face. Marco hugs him, hard, still murmuring apologies. Marco is still laughing into Jean’s neck and Jean finally tells him to shut up, he’s fine. He can still feel moisture on his lips from Marco’s own and he’s never felt better in his entire life. Well, except for his nose. Jean rubs it a little, holding onto Marco with the other hand. He’d hit the floor like a brick.

 

Marco Bodt is the best alarm clock one could ever ask for.

“You’re drooling on me, pony boy.” Jean opens his eyes with Marco’s cool arms around him and his hoodie ridden up halfway up his stomach. Jean squints his eyes.

“Did you just try to insult me using another classic novel reference?” Marco doesn’t say anything else about the subject, just tells Jean that it’s eight and that Levi will be there soon for first shift. Jean blinks a few times before grumbling and pulling Marco’s head above him down for a kiss. After their first kiss last night, Marco has promised to try to stay solid and human for any possible future kisses, but he still shimmers with what Jean guesses is affection when he pulls him in. Jean kisses Marco’s lips and then his cheek twice before sitting up and wiping the sleep from his eyes. 

“Thank you for waking me up.”

“Not a problem,” Marco stands, moving over to get Jean’s things. “Levi likes to come early sometimes. I just didn’t want to wake you up.”

Jean waggles his eyebrows in Marco’s direction. “So you were watching—“

“Yes, Jean, Marco the Pervert Ghost watched you sleep.” The sarcasm is so heavy that Jean actually is impressed. He’s starting to sound like Jean. “You probably should hurry,” Marco continues. Jean is still tired though. He’s tired and Marco is right in front if him with his soft hair slightly mussed.

“Okay.” Jean takes his bag from the other’s hands. “I’ll see you on Monday.” Marco shifts back on his heels.

“I’ll be here.” He gives such a bashful smile that suddenly Jean is feeling self conscious too. He thinks that the darkness of the night and the closeness of the world around them helped hide the reality outside, and now that the pale pink light is streaming in through the window that Marco opened, it all feels like less of a dream. It takes a couple seconds to settle in. Jean’s kissed this boy. Like five times already. He’s kissed a ghost boy five times. 

Jean turns to the door.

“Could I kiss you right now? Before you leave?” Marco questions, a stammering mess. Jean has to try not to laugh as he turns back.

“You don’t need to ask. Did u have to ask in the 50’s or something—” Jean is cut off by Marco’s lips, soft and calm and slow. It lasts a few seconds and Jean’s stomach is lifting to his throat.

“Monday,” Marco breathes afterwards. It’s the first time that Jean remembers  him breathing when he’s not talking. A real breath when he doesn’t need one.

“Monday,” Jean agrees, and leaves, locking the door. When he’s walking away from the store, bag bumping against his back, he glances back at the display windows and smiles when he sees Marco standing against then glass. He reaches up a hand to wave and Jean does the same. Marco then moves to touch the glass before he disappears, and the sun rising over the building takes his place in Jean’s eyes.

And Jean can’t help it; he lets out a little squeak of excitement and walks faster towards the opposite of where he wants to be.

 

 

 


	3. Part Three

Jean half-opens an eye toward the sunlight streaming from the east in through his window, and wonders how the hell he managed to wake up before noon. On his side, the sun hitting him perfectly in the eyes, he turns over, disgruntled. He takes one last glance at his clock, remembering what happened two days ago and imagining Marco’s hand in his for the billionth time before snuggling back into his blankets. Twenty seconds later he’s pulling on a pair of pants and running down the stairs with his bag flying behind him because _he’s late, he’s late, he’s late._

Jean tears open the door so quickly that the bell blares throughout the entire store, and Jean is panting and staring at Levi behind the desk.

“Forget about something?” Levi asks. He sets his newspaper on the desk. “A half an hour after your shift can go by very slowly when you’ve finished your paper and you can’t leave your store unattended.”

And there isn’t much Jean can do other than stand there with the burning sun on his back and apologize like a maniac. A few footsteps come from in-between bookshelves and Jean glances anxiously towards it, expecting to see Marco come around and maybe scare the living shit out of Levi so to distract Jean from his lecture that he knows is coming. But Levi just keeps his stone-cold expression locked on Jean, not glancing toward the ghost that could be walking toward him and then Jean sees why. Eren stops at the end of the aisle and his lips curl back into a grimace when he sees Jean standing there.  
Levi doesn’t notice any of this. “We still need a second shift, and Hanji actually likes you. You get this once, I guess.” and Jean thinks he might just fall to his knees or punch someone from how thankful he is that he doesn’t have to listen to Levi screaming at him. Eren Jaeger looks from Jean and then raises his eyebrows as he turns to Levi.

“This is seriously the first time this has happened?”

“Surprised?” Jean growls.

“A bit,” Eren purrs.

Jean can’t help it. His eyes are moving all around, waiting for Marco to do something, solidify his arm and punch Eren in the jaw, kick him in the dick; he _knows_ how much Jean hates him and he’s got the perfect opportunity right now.

Eren crosses his arms. “Come on Levi, I’ve already been here half an hour.”

“This place scares you, doesn’t it?” Levi deadpans.

Eren rolls his eyes, and then nervously glances at Jean to make sure he’s not smirking. He is.

Levi finally stands up from his chair and glowers over at Jean in the doorway. “Are you going to come in or not, Kirschtein?” Jean clenches his jaw and moves across the floor, adjusting his bag on his shoulder while he finally glares at Eren. Now’s your chance, Marco.

“I’ll see you _on time_ tomorrow,” Levi says, half a head shorter than Jean but still looking down at Jean over his nose as he moves away from the desk. Eren comes over and puts an arm around Levi’s shoulder. The next few seconds are awkward for every one of them, Jean thinks.

“We still have a few weeks left to have that maneuverboarding session I talked about, Jean. I wanna see how good you’ve gotten over the summer,” he says. And now in Jean’s mind Eren is pouring a heaping bag of salt into Jean’s flesh wound while laughing maniacally.

“Shut up, Eren. He’s got work to do.” And Jean wants to say thank you to the small man while he pulls Jaeger along. But instead Jean doesn’t say anything; just takes the box that has a stick-note with his name on it and retreats to the bag corner of the store, and waits until they’re gone.

 

As soon as the door clicks closed and Levi and Eren are gone, Jean finally stops holding his breath and places the box on the ground.

“Hi,” Jean hears in front of him, a silvery voice followed by Marco solidified like he’s just stepped out of a shadow. He comes to stand so that they’re almost touching, looking slightly down at Jeans too-long hair. 

“Hi,” Jean greets. The taller boy is gazing with half-closed lids and it says everything Jean needs to hear. As soon as Jean moves a tiny bit closer Marco grabs both sides of his face and kisses him hard, so quickly that Jean’s eyes are still looking at where Marco used to be. Jean doesn’t remember any of their kisses ever being like this; with Marco backing him against the wall and Jean giving back just as much as Marco is giving him. Jean has missed the taste of Marco and how soft his hands feel on his cheeks and the tiny sounds he makes, like this is so much that he can’t help but let out a tiny laugh in his throat. He spent two whole days without him, with Jean trying to occupy himself in any way before giving up and putting his head in his hand and staring out of windows like a lovestruck teenager.

And now, with the dead body kissing him back with everything he has, it almost makes minimum wage worth it.

 

Eren Jaeger has decided to make first shift his home, so much so that Jean overhears a conversation between his bosses about how they might just hire him to keep him busy. This wouldn’t be too terrible, Jean could go in there and try to convince them otherwise, if Eren weren’t at the other side of the store milling through the aisles at the moment. You would think after a week of Eren staying until Levi leaves with him would stop bugging Jean at some point, but no, the amount of passive aggressive comments that Jean could make has risen to new heights.

“Business and relationships don’t mix, Levi” Hanji reminds him. She says it too loudly, and Jean can hear Eren’s footsteps stop while he listens.

“But all he does is sit around and do nothing, and horse face needs another person to work with.” Jean’s initial reaction to the name ‘horse face’ fades into _oh god no, please._

“He seems to get all the work done fine by himself. We run a bookstore, Levi. We don’t need to torture him.” Jean tilts his head even further to where they’re standing in the back room, eavesdropping unashamed. He has to make sure to thank Marco later for helping him get his work done and keeping Hanji on his side.

“I’ll just tell him to stay out of my way, then.”

Jean feels himself sinking further into his chair with relief. Eren continues walking.

 

The only thing that helps, even if Eren is around, is the constant presence of Marco beside him, be it taking his pen and drawing something dumb on the corner of Jean’s paper, or sometimes even a kiss on the cheek if no one’s looking. Jean usually punches the air where Marco’s stomach would be if he does something like that. And then tries not to blush around customers or a watching Levi.

Even though he wouldn’t admit it to anyone, work has become his pride and joy. Taking more time to rearrange the books and sometimes not locking up until he’s finished an entire shelf. Dusting the hardest to reach places. Alphabetizing the CDs. The walk to the small store is spent smiling while listening to music, and then occasionally shivering when the summer air decides to remind him of what’s coming.

 

 

“Mikasa Ackerman.” Jean answers Marco’s question of one thing he regrets after pondering it for a minute and a half.

“Mikasa Ackerman,” Marco confirms. Jean nods solemnly. “Care to broaden on that subject?”

“Mikasa Ackerman. Where do I begin,” Jean feels the room get a tiny bit smaller, the embarrassment still burning in his mind. “Freshman year I walked right through the school’s doors, took one look at her, and swore she’d be mine.” Jean pauses, then takes a long, dramatic breath afterward. “She’s Eren’s adopted sister.” Marco’s face contorts into the same look Jean uses whenever they talk about Eren. Jean can tell that Marco doesn’t hate Eren; he doesn’t hate anyone. He has no reason to. But it makes Jean laugh every time he does it, so of course he mirrors the look before he smiles. “I didn’t know that, of course. I didn’t know who Eren Jaeger was. I should’ve though; she was stuck to his hip like Velcro every second of the day. I guess I only saw her; I didn’t bother to look half a foot away when I asked her to come watch me skate sometime. Maybe catch a movie.”

Marco leans back, reminiscing on the movie they watched on Jean’s phone the other day. He hasn’t seen a movie since 1957, so it was a huge event, complete with small bags of popcorn that only Jean ate. Jean had more fun watching Marco’s face react with the scenes of the movie and the mutterings of “these are ‘special effects’?” the entire night than actually watching the screen.

“So then Jaeger, who’s standing right next to her at the time, mentions that he likes to maneuverboard too. That he’s into these huge competitions, where they do insane tricks and parkour off buildings and shit.”

“Parkour?”

“Jump off of stuff.”

“Sounds a little…”

“Stupid? Yeah, tell that to Reiner, Annie and Bertl. They’re basically the big names of those competitions and were basically the coolest kids in school. After Mikasa graduated early and moved god-knows-where, they became almost like Eren’s new Velcro.”

“What did happen with Mikasa?”

“Oh, absolutely nothing. She shot me down after about thirty seconds. I got pissed at Eren on the night that Mikasa actually came to watch me skate and we ended up beating the shit out of each other behind one of the maneuverboard ramps. He gave me my first bloody nose.”

“Oh.” Marco draws his knees into his chest and Jean turns away to the floor. He feels like he can still feel the blood dripping down his chin. Eren’s rage-filled eyes glowing while he tears Jean apart; three kicks to the stomach, four punches in the face. Jean was so much taller than him, a tall lanky kid until Eren filled out and his punches got stronger and it was that much harder for Jean to fight back. Their hatred grew, and then Armin chose Jean, and then both their minds were either set on silence or murder. Eren’s glowing green eyes fill his vision, the blood drips from his nose.

“And that was just the beginning of it.” Jean starts again. He blinks Eren’s roaring face away. “I used to be so stupid…” He barely realizes, but _why the hell are there tears coming to his eyes?_ Jean can’t control his hand gestures anymore, as the last four years come rushing over him. “I wanted to prove I was better than them _so badly_. I used to enter those dumbass competitions and Eren was always one step above me, jumping a little bit higher, transforming into this machine who could control a board like it was part of him. I was good, don’t get me wrong, but he was always just a little bit better. So when I started hating my mom and only caring about beating everyone at the only thing I had a chance at, I ended up losing nearly everyone around me and I started getting so angry, and so touchy and cocky and blunt and sad—”

Jean rejects Marco’s hand when he tries to place it on his back. He doesn’t look up from the ground. And now Marco knows partly of why he’s so fucked up and alone.

“And then, here’s the best one, you’re gonna love this part.” Jean lets out a tiny sob as he looks up from the ground for half a second. He probably looks really hot right now, his entire body rocking with a few sobs as he remembers. Oh god, he’ll die if Marco’s looking at him right now.

“At the end of junior year, I finally beat Eren in something I don’t even remember what it was, and he got so mad that he ended up taking it out on everyone. Mikasa used to calm him down when he got like that, but she was gone now, and the only person who couldn’t handle it was Armin Arlert. So Eren was all ‘who’s it gonna be, Armin?’ Him or me?’ And at that point I was so tired and was so beat up that Armin must have felt some sort of sympathy. He didn’t speak to Eren since then. I don’t know if they’ve talked since then.” Jean lifts a hand and counts each on his finger. “So I broke up their childhood friendship and took Armin for myself, made my mom’s life as hard as possible while I went off and drank a six pack a day, and then gave up on anything that wasn’t the promise of something better and my damn board.” Jean doesn’t know when he started crying. He doesn’t remember when he last cried, much less in front of someone. He tries to bite his lip to stop it from trembling.

He’s not calling out for help, he’s shrinking into himself. He’s not crying for sympathy. He doesn’t need Marco’s sympathy.

“I’m sorry.” Marco says anyway into his hair. He doesn’t say much of anything else, and the silence lets Jean calm himself down as he tells himself to stop feeling it all. He doesn’t need to remind himself how little distance he’ll go in life. He doesn’t need to think at all right now. Jean lifts his face, eyes puffy still, and Marco’s sad expression is inches from him. Marco should never feel sorry for Jean. He should never have to make that face while he’s looking at him. Jean should never let him see him like this again; it’s just making him feel worse.

“I’m okay,” Jean says. Marco’s face doesn’t change, and he decides that yes, there’s no way in hell he’ll ever let Marco look at him like this again. So he grabs the only thing he knows is here for him right now, even if that might not even be the case from how Marco’s shoulders disappear for a few seconds out of shock when Jean grips them. Behind the desk in the store after closing hours, Jean pushes back every single thought of why maybe he isn’t worth it and pulls Marco closer to him instead, sucking on his lips until it’s too hard for him to even try to think straight. Even if Marco wanted to try to say something, he can’t really do anything but kiss Jean back right now.

It’s all an extension of Jean’s moment of weakness; he just wants to feel someone showing him that he’s not meaningless in his tiny world.

 

Jean takes his new, thicker jacket with him as he heads to work, the leaves blowing past him on the sidewalk and the promise of tonight’s goodbye settling in his bones. Armin is going to college. Some fancy university upstate that he’s worked his ass off to get into. Sasha is going to be following suit in a couple weeks. It’s just gonna be Jean and Connie left in their small circle of friends, until Connie saves enough for engineering school and Jean can finally get the hell out of here. Weeks ago in a moment of weakness Jean had left half of his savings on the kitchen counter after hearing his mom’s desperate pleas on the phone with the bank, and she hadn’t said much about it. So now he was back a couple hundred, far back from where he needs to be to get his maneuverboard and the money for buying a little place out there in the sticks.

Armin shouldn’t feel too bad about leaving, but he does, of course. Jean finally has a reason to use his skype and texting, and even though it’s sad and heartfelt Jean is a little relived. There goes another part of his old life, floating away from him and off to a life of his own. He’ll miss Armin when he can’t see him. But this is making it easier for when Jean finally leaves altogether.

 

It’s not a Marco day, but it still bums Jean out to walk through the door to see Eren sitting in Jean’s chair and Levi next to him, Marco nowhere in sight.

“It’s getting cold,” Jean murmurs as a greeting.

“Yeah,” Both of them agree. Hanji is over by a stack of papers in the back room and Jean will do anything to get his ass away from Jaeger; even go and help Hanji with whatever she’s working on.

“Oh, hello, Jean.” Jean feels a pinch on his arm as Hanji greets him, still facing the opposite way, and he whips around toward Marco. The boy disappears after a second, giving Jean a tiny wave before he’s left staring at the wall. Jean sticks out his tongue as a greeting toward where Marco was standing and then whips back around to Hanji. She’s turns to look at him, pushing the bridge of her glasses up her thin nose. “I made these fliers the other night, don’t you love them?” Hanji hands over a few of the papers, and Jean takes them with hesitant fingers. A bright yellow no one could miss, it reads that there’s a huge book sale going on a week from now. Right here at St. Maria’s. When Jean glances up from it Hanji is grinning, waiting for an answer.

“We’re having a sale?”

“Yes! It’s a bit of a reach toward making a larger profit. We usually struggle this time of year.” Jean silently nods to the papers in his hands. “Just to let you know Jean, if sales like these don’t work out like we’d like, we might have to make some adjustments around here. Maybe even sell the place.” She says it so casually that Jean nearly brushes it off before he feels her twist in the knife.

“Sell the place?” Jean prays that Marco isn’t still standing behind him.

“That’d be a drastic measure. Don’t worry about it. You’ve still got your job for now.” She moves back to the pages and Jean continues to look down at the fliers.

“I’ll put them up, if you’d like.” Jean says, thumbing the pages in his hands. It’d give him something to do besides listen to Jaeger talk, and something to get his mind off Armin. He won’t be with Marco, but it’s not like he would’ve seen much of the boy today anyway.

Grabbing the sheets of paper from the ground, a stapler gun and his jacket, Jean makes a run for it. He’ll apologize to Marco later for leaving without even saying a few words to him, but right now Jean just needs to get out of here. Hanji mentioning that they might sell the store is still tightening his throat.

He doesn’t even notice someone’s behind him when he makes it outside until he hears someone obnoxiously clear their throat.

Eren is looking at him like he’s just about to blow over with anger, but then again, he tends to look that way at Jean every chance he gets. Jean doesn’t have the energy for this right now. He was up late the last night staring at the ceiling and guiltily flicking through college websites after shedding tiny tears over Armin. He’s exhausted and tired of Eren’s face already. Eren opens his mouth, and Jean braces for it. There’s a strong gust of wind that whips back past both of them.

“So how long are you planning to bum around here?” Eren asks nonchalantly. Jean glares back at him. It’s too casual. Jean knows what Eren’s face feels like under his fist. Things between them should never be casual.

“As long as it takes.”

“Takes until what?”

“I don’t know, takes until I can start living a life? Go to college? Make enough so I can move on from people like you,” Eren’s teeth slowly start to reveal themselves in a half-assed grimace. Jean wishes that he’d brought a warmer hoodie as more wind pummels them both. “But who knows,” Jean continues. “Maybe I’ll stick around here for a while.” He places his hands in his pockets, waiting to see what Eren’s actually trying to get at. There’s got to be something.

“Or you want to stay around for the view,” Eren mutters. Oh, there it is. It takes Jean only seconds before he understands, and he automatically feels himself staring back at Eren aghast.

“You’re not suggesting—“

“Levi is with you for half the week and you’re probably planning on trying to hook up with him at some point. And I’m here to tell you that this isn’t like high school, Jean. This isn’t Mikasa. You never got her in the end, and now I’ve got Levi. And what have you got? An empty store full of books?”

Jean can’t bring himself to even try to play this game. He thought Jean wanted to hook up with _Levi?_ The man who’d rather kill him than stand within close proximity? Sure, he and Eren fought dirty in high school but that would be a particularly low and _unnecessary_ blow to Eren’s ego.

Eren takes Jean’s silence as defeat. “Just stay away from Levi.”

“That won’t be hard,” Jean assures him. He can feel a tiny pool of rage start to fill in his stomach at Eren’s smug face. He can’t believe he used to be in Eren’s position in these sort of talks years ago, with the raised eyebrows and crossing his arms and _knowing_ that he had just owned that face off.  
“Good.”

Eren turns to walk back up to the store, but Jean can feel the anger stinging his eyes. He can’t believe he used to look like that. What the hell was he back then?!

“Why the fuck would I ever want to hook up with Levi? I’m only in this job for the pay!” A lie, but the person he’s in this for is definitely not Levi.

“Come on Jean. You’ve been fucking with my life since freshman year. You’re in this for the pay? Bullshit! You’re in this so you can fuck my boyfriend and pay for a new knockoff maneuverboard.” Oh. That has crossed a line. That has crossed the insult-Jean’s-most-prized-possession-that-you-broke-yourself line (and it was most _definitely_ not a knockoff, either).

“ _You_ broke my board, you asshole! I tried to give up this rivalry thing a long time ago and you just won’t let it go! Let go of the past, fucking Jaeger, stop being a hot-headed showoff and grow the fuck up!” Jean screams, and crushes some of the fliers in his fist on accident.

More wind shoves Jean to the side, nearly causing him to lose his balance.

“I want to tear you apart,” Eren hisses. “But then Levi would have to work second shift.” He balls his fists like he’s contemplating it, seethes for a few seconds and then walks back inside. Jean turns on his heels and bolts.

He hangs a total of fifty posters all over the city, each staple smashing into the surface like it’s headed straight into Eren Jaeger’s scull.

 

 

Sitting in limbo doesn’t seem too bad of a way to be. Armin has been texting him every other day (his college campus is beautiful and Jean promises to visit winter break), and of course Jean is fine with the occasional check-in from his best friend. His mother has given up yelling and it’s finally tension-filled silence between them, which Jean is fine with. Eren is starting classes at community college, so he barely shows up during Jean’s shift. The weather cools further and Jean settles back into Marco’s arms, just now recovering from his last dip back into the limbo. This one only lasted a few days before he’s back to normal, but he still wasn’t okay with Jean kissing him again until all his scars stitched themselves together again.

Jean can’t exactly call Marco his boyfriend, because they’ve never said it to each other, and they can’t exactly go out and do whatever cheesy couple things other people do. It’s more of a friendship that makes Jean want to smile to the ends of the earth and kiss Marco every second of every day. It’s love, maybe. But Jean doesn’t know the right time to ever say stuff like that. His experience in relationships isn’t exactly up to par.

Marco isn't filled with that much expertise either, but it’s his cluelessness that endears Jean even more. Within the first couple weeks he’d asked Jean if they were dating and Jean merely shrugged, said that if they wanted to be they could, but Marco only shrugged as well. Dating meant going out to places and sitting rigidly in fancy chairs while eating expensive food, or dimly lit carriage rides through the park. Or at least that’s always how Jean had pictured it.

They’re both fine just being in each other’s company and living out their suspended lives together. It seems strange to try to stamp a label onto something like them. It’s not exactly a normal situation. They’re not a normal situation.

 

 

Someone walks into St. Maria’s on one of the few sunny days of September, while Jean and Marco are listening to the music around them and Marco plays with the scruff on the back of Jean’s neck. Jean lets himself lean into it, unlike yesterday when Marco was doing the same thing but Levi was nearby and Jean had to wrench out of it. When Jean looks up on instinct, he almost flinches away again when he sees Connie of all people walk in through the doors.

“Jean!” He shouts over to them, his bright grin blinding as he rushes over to the desk. The other customers roaming around turn to look at the short-haired boy with the leather jacket and crazy gaze that Jean has missed.

“Hey, Connie. Surprised to actually see you here.”

 “I saw a flier over by work and I told everyone ‘hey, my bro Jean Kirschtein works at that place, I’m so going over there’ and here I am!” He’s referring to the second round of sale events that they’ve been putting out. After the first time was a total flop, only their normal amount of customers venturing in through the doors, Hanji protested by making the fliers bigger, bolder, and printing out twice as much, all the while telling Jean too much about the newest Titans book that had just been released. Jean reaches over the counter and bumps Connie’s fist.

 “New co-worker?” Connie asks with a friendly tip of his head. Jean realizes that Marco’s still sitting right next to him. Jean glances at him, his charming smile is unfailing but his eyes scream with the pressure of how he’s trying to keep himself from vanishing into thin air. He still doesn’t talk to people that very often, and the eye contact is probably killing him.

Jean takes his silence as a good time to chime in. “Um, yeah, I guess. This is Marco,” Jean introduces. Marco sticks out a hand, and Connie doesn’t even realize that he shifts a tiny little bit into transparency on accident as he waits for Connie to grab his hand.

“I’ve heard countless stories about you, Connie,” Marco says. That’s definitely not a lie.

“Oh man, now I’ve got a reputation. Nice to meet you, Marco,” he says, trying out the boy’s name. He shoves his hands back in his jacket pockets, smile practically glowing. “I don’t think you went to school with us, Marco. Where’re you from?”

It’s such a simple question, but Jean panics. What the hell would he say? No one had ever directly asked him anything about himself. The only thing customers would ever ask him about is books, and that’s an easy question for Marco to answer, but this? Jean starts to open his mouth, lies smashing into place in his mind like a crashing train.

But Marco only laughs coolly. “I’m from around here. I actually graduated two years ago. You must’ve just never seen me!” Connie laughs with him, and their easygoingness has skipped Jean altogether.

“Ah, well. I’m surprised I haven’t heard more about you, Marco. Then again, I haven’t seen Jean here in forever,” Connie says, and Jean rolls his eyes through his quick breathing heart.

“It’s only been a few weeks,” Jean mutters. He doesn’t want to think about the lack of contact he’s made with his friends lately. “How’s Sasha?”

“Fine, I think. Who knows what she’s getting up to.” Connie rubs his head. “Probably having a lot of fun without me.” He’s still smiling, though. “Oh! Hey, did you get that new board yet, man? Without Sasha I barely get around anymore.”

Jean shakes his head, still mad with himself. “Not yet. I’m saving up for the newest model, unfortunately. It’ll take me forever.” Connie clicks his tongue disappointedly.

“Damn. You’ll get it soon. Hey, why don’t we go out for some food later? I’ve got some drinks at home; we can invite some of the others over and have a little reunion. Hey, Marco, you can—“

“Oh, thanks Connie, I’m sorry, I can’t.” Marco stammers. Jean feels the train crash even further, scrambling to come up with some excuse. Tonight was supposed to be a Marco night.

“Um,” Jean manages. “I’m um, busy.” Connie’s grin somehow stretches wider, his eyebrows rising as he looks between the both of them.

“I get it, yeah. You two are probably going to be real busy tonight.” After taking a few seconds to process, Jean feels the entire world come shattering down around him in one pile as Marco barks with laughter.

 

By midnight they’ve just finished watching The Great Gatsby on Jean’s phone and Marco is crying; leaning forward, holding his face in his hands and crying. Jean didn’t know ghosts could cry real tears, but they’re there.

“I can’t believe I just watched the book in front of my own eyes,” he whimpers, like he’s been for the past two hours. Jean is laughing, just because he’s being going on like this and Jean can barely take it anymore.

“The future is incredible, isn’t it,” Jean says to him, stifling a laugh in his sleeve as he stares at Marco’s back.

“It was all so real,” he says, and still facing the other way, reappears with his head on Jean’s chest. “Gatsby is so cute,” he cries, muffled by Jean’s shirt. Jean wonders what other movie adaptations of Marco’s favorite books he can find just to torture him.

“Yeah, yeah. You big baby,” Jean says, and kisses Marco’s hair. But the freckled boy leans back up wordlessly from where he was settled and then disappears from Jean’s touch altogether.

“I thought we were cuddling,” Jean says, annoyed. He waits for Marco to do something, to say something, but nothing comes. “Marco?” Was he heading back into a pranking phase? Oh god, Jean thought he was over that.

“Marco I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to call you a baby,” There’s still no reply, and Jean waits for it as he stares hard at the clock on the wall. Until he hears a tiny sniffle from the other side of the room. Jean stands, looking for where his ghost is hiding. “Come on, Marco” he whines. “Please, come on, I’m lonely.”

“I’m over here,” says a tiny voice, followed by a heart-breaking sob. And, like a child cowering from a storm, Marco has his back towards Jean again and his face toward the corner, sitting over by the record player.

“Marco I’m sorry, I should’ve prepared you for the movie. I’m an insensitive prick who doesn’t understand the glory of Gatsby and the preparation that goes into watching it and for that, I am sorry.” Jean hears Marco take in a huge breath before letting it out, something he barely does after he’d confessed to Jean that it hurts his lungs. Ghosts were not meant to breathe, it seems. So now Jean knows it’s serious and that he’s is not making things any better.

He comes down to Marco’s level and lightly holds onto his arm, just to make sure he’s still there.

“Sometimes I really wish I could be more for you.”  He’s curled in on himself, his hair falling in front of his eyes. Jean’s fingers freeze from where he was rubbing into his skin.

“Why would I want more?”

“You deserve more.” Marco turns to Jean. “I’ve learned enough stuck in here to know that people should be free to go places, to see things. You said it yourself—you want to get out of here and see the world. You don’t like it here.”

“I’d stay here if it meant staying with you.” Jean says, and shuffles closer, but Marco evaporates his arm and Jean’s grip closes into a fist.

“See? I’m not even real.”

And he’s gone. Jean sits, his fist still clutching the air, and feels the heat begin to slither up his neck.

“Marco Bodt, you come the hell back to me!” Jean screams. He jumps to his feet and turns blindly thinking _no, he can’t leave_ and runs into a solid Marco in front of him. The tears are gone from his cheeks but he still isn’t looking up. Jean doesn’t hesitate to yank on Marco’s shirt to bring him down, forcing him to finally lift those lashes.

“You’re real to me.” The way Marco is looking at him, unwavering and so _sure_ , makes it hard for Jean even try to return a look like that. Tiny tears try to escape from the corners of his eyes and Jean tries to hide them by crushing their noses together in a horrible attempt at a kiss. How dare he even try to convince Jean that he’s not real. If he’s not real then what the hell is Jean pressed against right now? Marco moves quickly, arms going around Jean’s waist and pulling the string around the both of them tighter.  
“You know I’m not breathing. I’m not supposed to be able to touch you. I’m dead,”

Jean pulls Marco down by his shirt so they’re slumped down on the ground against the wall behind the desk, Marco above him, before Jean murmurs against his ear.

“I don’t care.”

“You don’t care?”

Jean breathes out a soft ‘no’ before moving his mouth across Marco’s very real cheek, ear, neck. Not warm, but alive. Jean takes control of the kisses, forcing Marco to see that _yes you’re real you’re real I’m real_ in any way he can. Marco tugs a little at Jean’s hair probably on accident when Jean gets a little too forceful, but Jean only stops his mouth on Marco’s to say “you’re lucky I’m into that” before he apologizes anyway. Jean’s mouth travels down to Marco’s collarbone, sucking and only focusing on the movement of his own chest rising and falling unevenly while Marco’s is still. Marco mews a couple times when Jean lets his tongue on his sensitive skin but he makes another soft noise of surprise when Jean starts to pull his shirt over his head. There’s only a few paint strokes of scars left on Marco’s lower chest around the freckles from where the limbo is retreating from him. Jean reaches out and runs his fingers lightly over them.  
Marco watches Jean as he traces patterns along the other boy’s sides. “I can’t take off your shirt if you don’t get your hands off of me.” Jean rolls his eyes and mutters ‘my bad’ before moving his hands away. Marcos fingers move carefully around his shirt, slowly unbuttoning it and pulling the fabric away in a way that totally shouldn’t give Jean the satisfaction he’s feeling. Jean’s head is uncomfortably against the wall now, shirt unbuttoned and hands once again venturing all over Marco’s chest, unknowing of what else to do while Marco goes back to kissing him. But then Jean lets out an embarrassingly loud laugh, and Marco looks terrified toward him.

“If you think about it, you’re like ninety years old. I’m making out with an old man.” Jean says. Marco’s groans in frustration, bending back toward Jean with a tiny smile.

“You’re ruining it.” Marco nips lightly at Jean’s lips.

“Get off me, old man,” Jean says, smiling to himself, while Marco moves down and plants wet kisses on his chest and makes his laughter crumble into heavy breathing.  
When Marco’s mouth starts adventuring around his chest further, Jean can feel himself give into it a little more, his hands moving with a mind of their own to Marco’s pant buckle.  
Marco’s mouth freezes. He lifts his head, lips still pursed; shocked from the sudden invasion of somewhere that probably hasn’t been touched in seventy years. Arms on either side of him, Jean feels very small but also very, very turned on.

“Um,” he manages.

“Okay,” Marco agrees.

“How is this gonna work?” Jean asks.

“No idea,” Marco breathes, hovering over him one second more before Jean’s hands get moving again.

It works, somehow. It is quite the adventure, but Marco is human mostly the entire time, Jean sees stars behind his closed eyelids and he also discovers that Marco’s chin covered in drool is something that he enjoys seeing, apparently. Also, it is especially hard to give a handjob when your ghost boyfriend keeps losing his touch with solidity.

 

Then instead of cuddling and falling asleep in each others arms they both spend ten minutes cleaning up the floor for any traces that they might have been there. Levi’s snarling face is in the back of both of their minds and the vision of the consequences cause them to get distracted by each other only twice while they try to arrange things back as they were.  
While they’re finishing up their scrubbing, suddenly Marco says it. “I remember something from when I was alive. I love you, by the way.” Jean doesn’t miss a beat. He works at drying the last bit of water from the floor. 

“I love you too. What do you remember?”

“My mom.” Jean’s hand freezes. He drops his paper towels and turns toward Marco, who’s looking back toward him with the same expression.

“When did you remember that?”

Marco’s ghost blush makes it’s way up his face for the second time in the last hour. “When we were—“

Jean cuts him off. Was he seriously thinking about his mom then? “What about your mom?”

“I don’t remember that much, just her and I, walking. It might be a dream or something Jean don’t overreact. I think we were walking…together? And there were groups of people passing us…that’s it.” Jean takes a second before letting a small smile sneak onto his lips.

“You might remember more things someday.”

“Maybe.”

“Can you imagine?”

“No,” Marco says. “But I think I’m fine with what I have right now.”

 

 

The weekend after their first time Jean walks in with a flower behind his back, his hair finally styled and wearing his best flannel. He doesn’t know why he wants to be so formal with it. Maybe it was that single ‘I love you’ that they said to each other so simply that makes it hard for Jean to stop smiling. But Jean comes into the door and opens his mouth to recite his rehearsed speech when he sees Levi’s shoes on the desk and the newspaper covering his face. He feels his demeanor deflate, his smile fall.

“Hi, Levi. It’s Monday, you know.”

“I’m staying with you tonight. Hope that’s not a problem.” Kicking his legs uncrossed, he sits upright and places down the paper with a crunch against the counter. For a second Jean thinks that he might see a flash of confusion on Levi’s face, but then it turns cold and expressionless again.

“What happened to you?” Jean glances down at his new shoes that he’d taken out of his savings to buy, and suddenly feels ever so conscious of the way he’s swooped his hair to the side.  
“Just looking presentable, boss.” Jean nods curtly. 

“With a flower?” Levi asks. Jean prays that Marco isn’t listening to them right now.

“I…uh, my friend gave it to me.”

Levi lets out a soft ‘tch’ and slides his chair over to the other side of the desk.

Half an hour passes, and Jean is waiting for Marco all the while wary of his boss’s presence. He just _had_ to stay with him today, didn’t he? Jean tries to make a gesture toward the boy he loves and he’s not going to even see him today. Then again, Jean’s cheeks are blushing just at the thought of where Marco might be. He could be right in front of Jean’s face, simply invisible in front of him. He could reach toward him any time he likes…

Levi clears his throat. 

“Don’t tell Hanji this, but none of her book sale ideas are working.” Jean lifts his eyes from the book he was pretending to read.

“But the sale’s only just started.”

“And look around you.” Jean does. There’s a few customers, but none more than usual.

“Maybe it’s just a slow day.” Jean suggests. He laughs nervously afterwards, the dark cloud of _selling the store_ starting to move in from behind him.

“Yeah.” There’s another minute of silence. He guesses that’s the end of it. But now that there’s been words said, another question bubbles to the surface.

“So how are you and Jaeger?”

“You don’t care. You just want to know if he’s been telling me how much he wants to murder you lately. The answer is yes.”

“This whole thing wasn’t my fault, you know.”

“Not according to him.”

“Well, remember there’s two sides to every story.” Jean can feel Levi burning holes into the side of his face. 

“How did it start, then?” It’s the first question that requires more than a few word answer that Levi has ever asked him. He’s honored, even if it was said with such a heavy air of annoyance.

“I started it, of course. Freshman year.”

“Over those skateboards?”

“Maneuverboards.”

“It doesn’t fucking matter.” Levi snaps. Jean breathes, tells himself to calm down. This man controls his fate with Marco. Just let him disgrace the names of maneuverboards; it doesn’t matter.

“Yeah. Eren—he’s very…passionate about them.” Now that he’s entered Eren territory, he’s got to be extra careful with this. “In high school we used to get so competitive that we ended up just sort of hating each other for every reason. We’re both assholes, so that didn’t help,”

“Watch it,” Levi says, shuffling through a stack of papers. Jean wasn’t sure he was listening.

“Yeah, well, I might still think he’s—“ Jean stops himself. “But I broke my board anyway, so there’s nothing to fight over. It um, it got snapped in half…somehow…I’m not pointing any fingers but—“

“Organize those paperbacks on the shelf in the back room, Kirschtein.” and that’s the end of it. Jean takes his chance and jumps up from the uncomfortable exchange and rushes to the back room before he accidentally starts calling Eren out all the times that he’s nearly broken one of Jean’s bones.

  
Just as he closes the door behind him with a muffled click Jean whisper shouts for Marco.  
Unable to feel his breath on his neck, Jean is greeted with a pair of lips on the side of his throat, and instead of jumping out of his skin, he relaxes into the boy’s figure that’s appeared behind him.

“Hi,” Jean whispers.

“Did I scare you?” Marco asks. 

“Nearly shit my pants,” Jean says. He turns and takes Marco’s face into his hands, those wide brown eyes, freckles dusted over his nose and far below, Jean knows. He kisses his nose. “Miss me?” Jean asks, grinning. Marco’s smile gently falls and he solemnly leans forward and balances his forehead barely against Jean’s for a second.

“Yes, I did.” They stand like this for a minute, just taking each other in. “Now get to work, Levi’s not dumb, he’ll figure out if you’re standing in a room talking to yourself.”

Jean moves over to the shelf, places the books on it, moves a couple of them around. “Sorry I can’t talk to you much today, with Levi here,” he apologizes.

“And you even dressed all nice,” Marco puppy-faces him when Jean turns back around, and suddenly Jean remembers the crushed flower in his pocket that he’d stuffed away after Levi ridiculed him for it.

“Shit, here,” Jean hands him the lily, which he may or may have not taken from one of the pots on the side of one of the shops nearby. Marco takes it carefully in his hands, like it might just fall apart.

“I love it.” Marco spins the stem within his fingers, watches the petals spin and slow. “Why did Levi have to stay the one day where I really want to be alone with you,” Marco whispers.

“Tragic,” Jean murmurs, only half sarcastic, then walks back over and kisses him sweetly and softly, like the flower that Marco’s nearly dropped.

“Now get back out there, Jean. Go,” Marco says, pushing him off before deciding against it and stealing one last kiss on his cheek. “Have fun at work,” says his voice, his body fading away back into emptiness before Jean can blink.

 

 

Jean’s mom calls him again in the middle of something. A bit of a compromising position, really. Vibrating in his pant pocket, Marco almost screams and jumps off of him, and Jean has to embarrassingly reach over and click ignore. He calls her back when the crisis is averted, but (surprise) she’s angry. He thought that they’d finally managed silence, but she must have now remembered that her son is a failure and is calling to check in.

“How the hell do you expect to get anywhere with that shit attitude?” she screams after he makes a half-assed apology for outright ignoring her calls. Jean looks at Marco with a pained expression and gestures that he’s gonna take it outside. Marco, shirt still off and flickering transparent, nods quickly. Jean can see he’s hurt. He doesn’t like how Jean gets when he talks about him mom.

Jean closes the front door of the store, the moon a tiny sliver in the sky and the air around him too still. He sits down on the front steps. What time is it, anyway? A little before midnight. Too late for this sort of conversation.

 His mom starts going off about college. And how he’s never home. And how she’s disappointed in who he’s becoming. Even though it’s the usual, Jean loses it this time. Maybe it’s the eerie stillness to the air.

“Mom, I’m not going to college. I’m not going to your perfect school and I’m not going to waste my life working for a job I’m going to hate in a few years. I’m so fucking sorry but that’s not who I’m gonna be!”

“And you’re just gonna stay at that bookstore the rest of your life?” She screams right back. Jean stares straight ahead.

 

The rest of his life.

Could he really do that?

He is in love with Marco. More in love than he thought he could be. And Marco is the first person to love him back. But Marco can’t escape from St. Maria’s. He and Jean could never go anyplace on their own. Hell, he’s a ghost who has to control himself in order to stay visible.

It hits Jean hard, then. He gets up off the stairs, his breath going heavy, heaving into the phone with his mom waiting on the other end. He’s fallen in love with someone who can’t go anywhere. Which makes Jean stuck too.

He’s let Marco clip his wings before he’s even tried to fly.

“Huh? Are you gonna stay there?”

“Yes!” Jean screams without question. His lip is quivering. “I…no—yes I am! I like it here. I…” 

“You like that goddamn bookstore more than the chance of an actual future?!”

“So what if I do! You shouldn’t give a shit whether I’m in the police or homeless. If I ever do want to go to college, or get a new job, or start my life over I’ll do it. But I’m here now; I don’t care how badly it’s fucking up my life.”

Jean walks back into the store a few minutes later; after he’s sure any traces of frustration or tears are gone, where Marco’s waiting right at the door.

“The walls are really thin,” he says, and Jean can’t look up at him.

“Sorry you had to hear that.” Jean says, and they rigidly embrace each other just to have something to hold on to. Jean feels like he’s just snapped a handcuff onto his wrist and the other to this place, trapped while he breathes in Marco against him.

 

 

The sight of a maneuver board leaning against the desk next to Hanji when Jean first walks in a week later makes his breath catch in his throat. Eren’s still supposed to be in class. Where the hell is he. Has he seen Marco? _Oh god he’s seen Marco._

But then Jean sees it; one of Levi’s sticky notes pasted to the front of the shining surface.

“Afternoon, Hanji,” Jean starts. He can’t take his eyes off of the board.

“Hey, Jean. Want to preview my rough draft?” She continues hammering away at the keys and humming slightly off key to herself. Hanji’s decided to try book writing herself, after Jean had suggested it half-sarcastically while she described in perfect detail the seventh chapter of the first Titans book. He’s read a little bit of the first couple chapters she’s written, and it’s not that bad, but she tends to drabble. Jean doesn’t have the courage to tell her, though. He keeps thinking about the board next to him though, his fingers aching to touch it.

“Um, sure, yeah. Hey, who’s board is this?”

“Yours.” She answers without pause. Jean stares at Hanji’s back as she types in a few more words.

“Huh?”

“Levi got it for you.” Jean reaches down, tears it from the ground, and gazes awestruck at the note on it. _It’s getting cold soon. If you’re not gonna get a car, then you’re gonna need this._  No signature, but Jean could always recognize that messy scrawl.

“Why the hell would he do this?” Jean asks, turning the board over and over in his hands. It’s fucking gorgeous. And light. And _new_. Levi bought him a board. He doesn’t need to save up money anymore. He could leave town tonight if he wanted.

“He’s got a soft spot for you, Jean. You just can’t see it.”

“You’re joking. Where is he?”

“Out with Eren again. But I wouldn’t try to hug him or anything. He’s sensitive about that sort of stuff. Just let him do his nice deed and don’t bring it up too much.”

“I just can’t believe he would buy me a maneuverboard…this one’s better than my old one.” The design is of a pair of great white wings, smoothly hand painted on it, glossed and smoother than Jean’s old one even when it was brand new.

“All right, this chapter’s done. Oh! By the way, we need extra help on weekends, would you want to—”

“Yes!” Jean immediately agrees. Hanji spins her chair around, grins, and Jean comes over to look at the computer. But can’t exactly focus, the words all mixing themselves in his brain while he embraces the feeling of a maneuverboard in his fingers and his heart hammering in his chest.

  
 “Wait, _he_ gave you this?” Marco picks up the board with both hands that night, obviously unsure of how he should hold it. Jean grins, nodding earnestly at the painted wings.

“Levi,” Marco looks to Jean for confirmation.  
Jean nods again, biting his lip. He doesn’t know how he’s able to get this way over anything but Marco, but he loves this board like more than anything. He hasn’t stopped holding it all day, practically white-knuckled from how tight of a grip he keeps.

“It’s amazing.” He hands it back over to Jean, leans over and kisses his cheek. But Jean can barely feel it; he can’t take his eyes off of the baby-soft wheels and the metallic accents on the gift from the boss he thought hated him. All afternoon he’s been guessing all the different reasons that Levi might have gotten it for him. He can’t actually like him, and his sympathy for Jean walking in the soon-coming snow can only run so deep. He guesses that Eren might have put him up to it as a joke. Yet here he is holding it. 

“You should go try it out,” Marco mentions. Jean looks desperately up at the taller boy, his eyes wide like a child as he holds onto the board tighter. He’s been wanting to do that all goddamn day.

“But tonight is our hangout night,” Jean says, puffing out his lower lip even though his body is telling him to _go_. Marco seems unfazed.

“There’s only one other place I can go besides in here,” he reminds Jean. Jean racks his brain for how what Marco’s saying could possibly true when he remembers. Marco had told him about the stars.

After standing there for a few seconds, hands still absentmindedly running over the board’s silky finish, Marco takes Jean’s hand and leads him toward the back room, but then turns back past the bathroom and then toward the back entrance.

They reach the back door, and Jean reaches for his keys. “Now you can show off those moves that would knock girls off their feet in high school,” Marco jokes, while Jean rolls his eyes. Marco disappears while Jean is unlocking and opening the door and when it creaks open on unused hinges Marco is already on the other side waiting. “It’s been forever since I’ve been out here,” he says, familiarity in his walk as he saunters outside.

It’s dark, the only light right above their heads above the door’s frame, and Jean glances around himself. There’s a dumpster from the store next door across from them and the alley itself is only maybe ten feet across. Marco immediately hops on top of the dumpster soundlessly and rests his head in his hand. “Go ahead,” he prompts with a wave of his hand. Jean grins, seeing how content Marco is in this place he’s never seen him in. He puts the board on the ground, places his right foot on it, just to confirm that this is real, and sighs. It feels so good to have the comfort under his feet again. He feels like himself again. 

“Be right back,” Jean says, and without looking back at Marco, kicks a foot behind him and sweeps into the early night. The air smells of fall and the stars are covered, and Jean sails up the line of shops and embraces the wind on him, stretching out both his arms. Riding the air and sweeping from left to right, the freedom hitting him full force, he knows he could sail like this for the next couple miles without trying. But Marco is waiting for him. Jean still indulges himself and takes a detour to grind over a small railing and do some elementary tricks that he could never forget, relishing in his own skill that his old self would applaud. Then without second thought he takes a sharp turn and heads back toward the alley.   
When he does approach Marco waiting for him, he does a few more mediocre tricks just to get a cheer from the freckled boy, his barely-visible smile filled with fondness and the tips of his hair glowing in the doorway’s light.

“Have fun?” Marco calls.

“Yeah.” Jean has to make sure that his face doesn’t split in half from how wide he’s smiling. “You have to try it.” Marco hops down from the dumpster in one graceful motion. Jean still worries that he’s too cold in his t-shirt before he remembers.

“I’m fine just watching you, actually.”

Jean pitches the maneuverboard into his waiting hand. “Hey man, you made me learn how to dance! Now it’s your turn to look stupid. Besides, since when have you done something outside that damn store?” Defeated, Marco wordlessly walks over to the board. Jean places it on the ground in front of him. “Here, step on. I’ll help.” Jean holds his hand as Marco steps on, wobbling insanely right as he puts weight onto it.

“You do tricks on these things?” Jean can’t help but laugh at his jittery expression.

“Yeah, I do.” Marco grips Jean’s arm tight as the board almost slips from under him and he almost transports from Jean’s arms out of fear. Jean slowly walks him down the street, the board rolling at a slug’s pace while Marco lets out tiny yelps.

“I feel like a pro already,” he says, after a particularly large pebble almost tips him over. Jean can see the empty street in front of them. As Jean holds his waist, Marco murmurs to Jean behind him. “I think I remember something else about before I was dead, Jean.”

“What is it?”

“Just a small memory from what must’ve been my school days. Some kids threw a book I was reading into a pond.” He barely pauses for Jean to react. “I know it’s real though, it’s so clear, Jean. I feel these tiny fragments piece together sometimes, when I’m looking at you, that’s when I feel it like someone’s knocked me on the head and suddenly there’s something new there. These memories are coming back to me.” He braces himself taller on the board, waiting to be pushed further along the alleyway.

“I’m glad,” Jean says. He wonders if Marco’s life was better than this when he was living. What other things happened to him when he was growing up seventy years ago without him. If there was someone else who loved him.

Jean wonders when he’ll remember all of it, and when he’ll realize that Jean isn’t all that he’s built him up to be.

“I wish I could take you out there.” Jean says instead, his mouth close to Marco’s ear. They reach the mouth of the alley, where it opens into the road with a line of shops on either side of them. Jean stops the board, and then asks “how far can you go?” without thinking.

It all happens very slowly, as Marco takes a small breath in and Jean knows he’s hurt him. Marco steps off the board shakily, and walks forward with his arm out until Jean watches his hand hit an invisible wall. He pushes against it for a couple seconds, then with both hands. Jean’s heart sinks.   
“I’m sorry,” he says after Marco stares at the glass wall for a long time. The maneuverboard has kept rolling, ignoring the invisible barrier, and Jean has to go fetch before it goes into the street. 

“It’s okay,” Marco says, arm still resting against the empty air. Jean comes back inside of Marco’s side of the wall, feeling no difference from on one side than the other. “I just wish during all this time I had figured out a way to get past it.”

“Maybe there is a way.”

“I don’t think there is, Jean.”

It’s not the right time or place for Jean to try to say anything, and he’s not very good at consoling as it is. He stands behind him instead, lays his head on Marco’s taller shoulder and wraps a hand around Marco’s wrist, checking for a pulse for a second, just to be sure. He still can’t think of anything that might help. Marco is ensnared in his own small world, dead but alive and Jean is trapped right there with him, alive but not living. Standing with his hand against something Jean can’t touch and his head rested back on Jean’s, Marco stands. If someone were to see them across the street right now, they might just look like two boys standing in an alley, two shadowy figures standing alone, two small shapes shrinking smaller in the dim bluish light.


	4. Part Four

Half of Marco’s face is gone again. Jean nearly drops his sack lunch on Monday when Marco greets him with only “it’s back” before finally fully solidifying to expose the blood on his face and the tears in his clothes. Jean hugs him, kisses his good side and then tries not to look at it—the burning and peeling flesh that covers him—for the rest of the day. It’s always so sudden, and it gets Jean anxious to even know Marco is like this, even if he says he can’t feel any of it. Neither of them know when it’s going to happen, and neither knows why. Jean wonders if one of these days it just won’t stop. If suddenly Marco will be a weak, transparent corpse forever. He turns away from Marco’s face, sets the image away from his mind, and decides that he’s not going think about it.

 Ever since he’s started working weekends, and as the weather has started whipping wind around them and bringing in icy breezes, Jean has found a tiny whisper of anxiety over his shoulder, always coming too close right when he doesn’t want it to. And Marco being unable to touch him until his limbo is gone has just added to the tiny feeling, waiting directly behind him. Jean needs arms around him at some moments, and with the bloody and scorched skin on Marco’s forearms and traveling upwards it looks like Jean won’t be getting that until it passes. Even Marco’s scratched hands holding his is sometimes not enough.

Not everything is under Jean’s growing cloud of doubt, however. His maneuverboard is still by him constantly; a reminder that there’s something out there that hey, he’s still good at something, if it comes down to it. There’s something that makes people turn their heads to look at him when he sails by, gracefully gliding across the leaf-covered sidewalks. It’s his escape from home when he needs one. It’s what helps he and Connie finally get close again. Plus it saves time on the route of coming to work.

Jean’s Saturday mornings are no longer slept through; they’re spent whipping through a cloud of cool fog collected on sidewalks as St. Maria’s slowly emerges from the gloom, and Jean is able to breathe out again. The piece of plastic under his feet and Marco coming into view in front of him makes the smog fall away from him, the anxiousness that’s been crawling up his neck falling away for a while.

 

“I’ve been thinking,” Marco says, as Jean cleans the store’s front windows. The ghost boy halfway appears next to him from where he was fiddling with the things on Jean’s desk, and Jean scrubs out a smudge from the window as he regards Marco’s injured face for a second before forcing himself to look away. It’s best if he remembers Marco’s real face while they’re talking. It keeps the worry from settling far down in his stomach.

“Thinking about what?” Jean asks.

“My memories. Who I was.”

“Really?” Jean asks. Marco hasn’t had many new memories appear lately during his limbo, and Jean has selfishly been thankful for it. As horrible as it may seem, Jean is appreciative of the mystery that shrouds Marco’s old life, likes the way that Marco doesn’t know that there could’ve been something better than this bookstore, or Jean. “What is it this time?”

“I wanted to join the police, remember that?” Jean forces himself to nod. “Well, I remember somebody teaching me the right way to hold a gun.” Marco raises his hands into small pistols and shoots the air toward Jean with some enthusiastic sound effects. Jean rolls his eyes. “And I remember sitting in lectures about police training and—Jean you’re not gonna believe it. I remember some of the faces of the people there! I don’t remember their names, but I made friends with this boy in my training group, and I remember we went out for milkshakes everyday after class.” He’s grinning behind his words, Jean can tell, but the jealousy is burning the back of his neck.

Other people knew Marco, other people saw that smile. Another boy took him out for milkshakes, goddammit. Jean clenches his jaw as Marco continues. “It’s so weird knowing I used to go places, actually walking down streets, in my very own life.” Jean scrubs harder at the place on the window, biting the inside of his cheek.

“That’s…that’s good.”

“Ah, perk up, pony boy. It’s just window cleaning,” Marco jokes, solidifies his hand so he can pinch Jean’s side and then disappear again. Jean stares through the glass, at two geese taking off for the incoming cold weather, flying up over a tall building and out of his sight, and bites his cheek harder.

 

Marco pops up from the other side of the desk, thick and a few bloody winding scars coating his skin as he leans over the desk toward Jean’s face.

“I remember something. My first car,” Marco says, then mockingly lifts his eyebrows and crosses his arms, smugly looking down at Jean with one eye open. Jean listens as he reaches for his new book to start. He’s been reading more than usual, the final side-effect of working in a bookstore finally catching up to him.

“Oh, really. What kind?”

“I got it right before I died, maybe a week before, because I only have a few memories and something’s telling me that I didn’t have it for very long. But—hey Jean, are you listening?” Jean looks up at him. “It was a 1955 Chevy Bel Air.”

“Damn,” Jean says, Marco’s wide smile almost making him forget about the scars. “Never thought I’d say this, but I’d trade my maneuverboard for a car like that.” Marco laughs loudly and leans further over the desk.

“Are you kidding me? You wouldn’t trade that maneuverboard for anything.”

“I know.” They both giggle to themselves, and if Marco would let him Jean would lean forward and plant a huge kiss on that handsome ghost face of his. But he’s learned enough to know that Marco would never let him kiss him only to pull away with the taste of blood on his lips.

 

Marco’s ability to tell when Jean is having a good day has become more of a curse than a blessing. He’s just sitting there, perfectly content reading with his ankles crossed and Levi’s breathing in unison with his, while Hanji is out getting some decorative things to put on the shelves and to laminate some promotional signs. But it’s Jean’s happiness that must’ve lured Marco in, because one moment he’s holding the book and the next Marco’s fingers appear to trace small patterns on his hands. Jean looks over at the fingers that dissolve into nothing, watching them then travel down his arm and then to the collar of his shirt. Thank god he’s facing away from Levi, because already his face is changing into a look of ‘no, don’t you dare, no.” He looks up to where he thinks Marco’s face is and shakes his head quickly, but the fingers persist, running down his shirt and of course, getting the reaction that he’s going for. Jean sighs a little as both Marco’s hands travel further, and Jean looks over his shoulder to check. Levi is still turned the other way, head bent over papers, his shoulders inhumanely tense. Jean turns back around as Marco starts to palm the place he definitely _should not_ , especially in this close of proximity of the most terrifying human Jean has ever been close to. Only thirty seconds more is all Jean can take, trying to look back at the pages of his book, breathing going choppy and the sound of Levi’s squeaky chair turning toward him is all he needs before he knows that Marco cannot continue where he’s going if Jean wants to avoid the worst moments of his life.

“There was a sale on lucky cats down the street, so I helped myself to a few!” Hanji cries, using her foot to kick the door open, the bell ringing and causing Marco’s hand to stop pulling on the zipper. Hanji’s box filled with Chinese lucky cats watch Jean accusingly, but the guilt along with his red face never manages to reach Hanji’s eyes. She rushes in, her coat long and flowing behind her, placing her new finds right down in front of Levi, who barely flinches when the box slams down directly in front of his work. Jean takes the few seconds of banter between them to get up and excuse himself to the bathroom, already calling Marco out in his head for nearly causing his death by Levi.

Marco tells him to be quiet, and Jean swears and pushes on the back of Marco’s head toward him, drowning out a moan into his hand. It’s all Marco’s fucking fault, it’s all his fault that he’s seeing the world crash around him before having to come out of the bathroom minutes later with blushed cheeks and sweat on the back of his neck.

 

A week later, Jean leans his maneuverboard against his side of the desk carefully; admiring it for the millionth. His section of the desk is now neatly decorated with a few possessions he’s brought along, and it feels like home. Around the small mess, there’s still his old maneuverboard catalogs, crappy sketches that he and Marco did of each other on notebook paper, and a partially crumpled picture of him and his friends at a party senior year. Jean could’ve just kept that one on his phone; it’s a pretty unflattering one if he’s being honest. He’s laughing at something the camera can’t see and Connie next to him looking like he’s going to throw up. Sasha is in the background with her head under the chocolate fountain and Christa is in the middle, smiling and looking completely un-trashed compared to the rest of them. Sure, it’s a shitty picture taken by Armin at two AM, but having it physically there on his part of the desk makes Jean smile every time. Marco picks it up sometimes and looks at it for a long time, until Jean has to ask him what he’s doing and Marco puts it down again, looking guiltily back at it a few times before smiling again.

Levi comes in the room, holding a bag on newly microwaved popcorn between two fingers, and gracefully glides into his chair. His shirt looks freshly pressed, his hair the only thing untidy about him. How can he stand Eren, of all people? Eren, besides being the actual scum of the Earth, was probably covered in an inch-thick layer of grime at all times.

“If you get mud on the floor from the wheels of that shitty thing, I won’t hesitate to throw it out the door,” Levi says flatly, and Jean realizes that he means the maneuverboard that he’s just tapped with his foot and is now further leaning up the desk. Jean has decided that not responding to Levi at times like this is just the best option, so he just watches as he turns to Hanji’s laptop to send some emails. Jean sets his brows down as he turns away but still smiles to himself. Levi is always especially bitter about the maneuverboard, acting like it just appeared one day instead of it being a gift that he got for Jean himself. He hears Levi sip quietly from his coffee, and Jean settles his eyes back to the page of his book, knowing that maybe there was some sort of masked approval in that tiny, disgruntled man.

 

There’s things that Jean has picked up about Marco’s memories, over the few weeks where they’re coming more consistently. The way that he speaks about them is always rushed, excited, like he can’t wait to see what Jean’s reaction is to the things that he can finally remember. There’s always a second where he’ll look at Jean in anticipation, and Jean knows that this is the moment where he needs to show Marco that he loves the idea of him knowing his past.

Another thing that Jean has realized is what it’s like for Marco to regain a memory. The only times he’s been there to experience it, Marco just seems to go out of the loop for a time, unable to focus on much of anything. He’s described it to Jean as sort of “like I’m watching a movie play back, like on your phone. You know?” Except the character is him, and he can hear himself replying to other people without trying. He says they’re fuzzy, but one memory usually leads to another; all blurry puzzle pieces that he needs time to figure out. Jean can tell when he’s getting flashing of images behind his eyes, when Marco seems a little off, when his eyes look dazed after too long of a silence. Jean tries to pretend he doesn’t see it, waits for Marco to tell him about the newest thing he’s seen and for him to then snap on a smile.

But what triggers the memories is what Jean has realized most. One came when Jean simply reached out to take Marco’s hand, but other times it’s when Jean is being snappy and Marco realizes that he should stay a little farther than usual when they’re sitting together. Jean thinks that maybe staying neutral towards him might prevent them; just close enough to maybe veer them in another direction for a while, maybe send them away all together. But they come out of nowhere, like the limbo, and it’s almost like Marco’s gone for the short time he’s watching his story play out behind his eyes.

 

The day that the store’s roof springs a leak, Jean opens the back room door to look for a bucket and finds Hanji instead. Her head is tipped against the wall to his left, her body leaning into it and shoulders curled up around her. But Jean wouldn’t have noticed her if he hadn’t heard her crying upon coming in. And when Jean turns, shaken as he thought he was alone, he sees her shoulders shake as she hunches away from him.

“Hanji?” Jean asks. She turns, wide-eyed and smudged glasses and attacks him at lightning speed, both arms wrapping around his shoulders and burying her face into his sweatshirt. Jean awaits his death from how hard she’s squeezing him in their one-way hug that may be breaking one of his ribs.

“I don’t know what to do, anymore,” she blubbers. The dramatics aren’t gone from voice, but the usual cheery lightness has moved to a somber wail as she grips him. Then Jean realizes what she’s talking about. “We aren’t getting enough money. None of the sales are working. And I can’t think of the right way for my book to end—“ she breaks off into a racking sob on the last part and falls further into Jean’s arms.

“We’ll just think of something else.” Jean assures her, practically holding her up off of the ground. He’s stiff as a board, all feeling being pulled from his fingertips as he imagines boards going up over the glass windows, the blinds drawn closed permanently, the dust collecting on empty shelves as Marco is stuck alone. “You’re smart, Hanji. You’ll think of something.” She springs back from his arms. She wipes her nose with the back of her hand, her glasses fogged and tears dripping all the way down to her neck.

“Thank you Jean. I will think of something. I just wonder if it’ll work into the plot of the story…” she says, and walks out seconds later with one last whimper. Jean stands alone in the back room for a few moments, telling himself that Hanji _will_ think of something. She has to. Then he moves to find the closest thing he can to a bucket (one of the popcorn bowls) and sets it down for the rain to drip into. The sound of the constant dripping annoys every one of them in the silence. Finally, Levi says he’ll call for someone to fix the leak the next day. Every time a drop of water hits the bowl, Jean winces.

Every drip is a reminder that this comfort Jean is in—this tiny place and his small role in it—is oh so very temporary.

 

Connie moves away. All the way up to an apartment in New York City, apparently. Jean congratulates him, promises to visit sometime, and then hangs up the phone so slowly he’s unsure if he’s actually moved. It shouldn’t bother him too much; they only hung out to go skating together and it was already getting almost too cold to go do that and actually enjoy it. He should be thankful—that he was the last friend from high school to move away, that he could finally fuck up his life without them constantly watching. But the fog that sometimes ventures in through Jean’s pores and turns him to a shaking mess returns when he thinks about Connie—about how all of his friends are actually leaving, actually starting their own lives. The fog surrounds him on the ride home from work, when he stops in front of his front door and tries to imagine he’s anywhere but. His world is so incredibly small. And everyone but him seems to be able to exist in a world so much bigger and better than his.

 

Another book sale. A Halloween themed book sale, complete with cheesy decorations and horror novels lined up by the windows. That’s Hanji’s brilliant idea.

Even though it’s freezing and there already be a whisper of snow on its way, people are eventually flocking in  during the days leading up to the 31st. But as the big day approaches, a question lingers in the back of Jean’s mind and the devilish gears of his mind begin to turn. Levi and Hanji aren’t working the night before Halloween, on the night where there’s bound to be the most customers, all waiting for the most authentic Halloween experience that St. Maria’s can offer. Which poses the question: what are he and Marco going to be for Halloween?

“No, you cannot be a character from To Kill A Mockingbird.”

“Why the hell not?” Marco protests. Jean puts his hands on his hips, feeling like his mother, but _come on,_ Marco. Halloween is supposed to be _fun_.

“Because no one’s gonna know who you are.”

“Fine.” Marco gives in, and lays down in defeat on the desk with Jean’s bag passing through him.

 

And then, as the sun disappears behind the store two days later, Jean pulls out his costume from the grocery bag and pulls it on before Marco has the chance to say anything. The eye holes are uneven, and there’s a stain in one of the corners of the sheet, but Jean is already crying with laughter underneath his makeshift ghost costume. Jean approaches Marco slowly, who’s standing with his arms crossed, starting to groan under his breath. Then, in the spookiest voice Jean can manage, he crouches behind him and mumbles “The Greeeaaattt Gatsbbbyyyyy” and then, circling around the dark-haired boy, moans “I haven’t shoowwweeered in seeeventy yeaaaaars.”

Jean laughs until he nearly falls face first to the ground, while Marco has found the time to wander over to what else Jean has shoved haphazardly into the plastic bag. He’s still putting it on as Jean is turning around but Jean's breah still catches as Marco places the crown softly onto his head of mussed dark hair.

Jean would never admit that he’s a little bit speechless.

“You’re kidding me, Jean. A prince?”

“What? I’m you for Halloween, so it’s only fair if you were me.” Jean says, and physically feels his asshole personality points go up a few through his wide-mouthed smile.

Jean is admiring the prince crown and cape on Marco’s very prince-like frame when the boy underneath disappears, the costume clattering to the ground, and then the sheet is ripped from his head.

“My prince charming,” Marco says, dipping Jean to the ground, and Jean falls for his dumb line and sighs into Marco’s lips as they come pressing against his. Jean’s hands move into Marco’s hair, and Marco isn’t strong enough to hold them both like this, so Jean is placed softly on the ground before Marco gets to work. While Marco kisses him, Jean takes his chance to open an eye, seeing Marco’s hair falling forward onto Jean’s face and Marco’s closed eyes brushing eyelashes against him.

Neither warm nor cold, neither dead nor alive. His heart sinks all the way into his stomach as Marco starts to kiss his neck. Jean’s in love, but Marco’s lips still bring a promise of forever that burns far down into his bones.

Even after the fleeting moments of Halloween, with Jean scaring kids in front of the store by standing in the shadows and Marco moving books on the shelves like he used to, Jean can still feel it in him. Connie moving away. All his friends leaving him. Jean being expected to do the same. His mother’s return to empty silence.

His 3Dmaneuverboard can only carry him so far.

 And sooner or later, he’s starting to feel like the handcuff that holds him to Marco is starting to hurt his wrist.

 

Armin comes back from college for the weekend, and even though Jean is supposed to be helping him study for exams in a few weeks in his bedroom, Jean has taken the opportunity to just fuck around and pretend like things are back like the old days between them. This has included ransacking his fridge and flopping down on his bed, loving the feeling of blankets and a home that isn’t his.

“What’s college really like? None of the sugar-coating.” Jean asks. He’s not actually interested in the actual aspect of college, he just wants to know if things are better there than they are here.

“I don’t know. Independent.” _Shit_. That could be nice right about now. “A lot of work. Lots of sleepless nights, but it’s worth it with all the fun you have.” Armin closes his eyes when he smiles over to Jean, so Jean doesn’t hide the way his face contorts into confliction. Jean lays his head down on Armin’s pillow, blows air out though his nose. It’s not jealousy that he feels, is it? He can’t seriously be jealous of Armin and his time at college. Besides, Armin is actually cut out for that sort of stuff, Jean isn’t. Maybe it’s the way Armin holds himself now, the new textbooks he’s looking through, or maybe even his new haircut.

“That was still sugarcoated as hell.” Jean narrows his eyes up at the ceiling. “I still don’t think college is for me.”

“How are things at St. Maria’s?”

“Good!” Jean hisses. He doesn’t mean to sound so harsh about it, but it’s almost like he’s forcing himself sound like things are as dreamy as they were months before. “It’s good, I love it there.”

“You sure?” Jean faces Armin, who’s bright blue eyes are looking at Jean with all the uncertainty he’s feeling. Damn you Armin for hearing through Jean’s flawless deceit.

“I mean, yeah, it’s fine. It’s great. I’m happy.”

“The world can get pretty small if you never try to go out and see it.” Jean opens his mouth to protest. How the hell did he know? Jean knows he can be obvious about a lot of things, but Armin can read him almost as well as that textbook. “I know you love it there, and you have that boy now, but still. Maybe some time at school would help?”

“Don’t act like my fucking mom, Armin.” Jean says, and that shuts him up. But Jean is still thinking it over whether he admits to it or not. His world is getting very tiny. Armin turns a page of his textbook.

 

Eren Jaeger is out of classes for the weekend, and it’s one of the few weekends where he and Levi stay all day with Jean, and Jean has to put in his headphones of his phone in order to drown out the occasional cute remarks that they make to one another. He can’t take more than three seconds of it, on a good day. And now that Jean’s nose is stuffy and his head is pounding and god, not even Marco’s hand in his while he sits is making him feel any better while this cold takes his entire body captive.  
“Hey, asshole.” Eren says as he enters the store, walks past the counter and into the back room after shaking his jacket from the cold. Jean says nothing; his voice could never come close to intimidating in its current state of sounding like a growling Chihuahua. He can barely squeeze out a grunt of disregard as Eren passes, and even then it feels like sandpaper on his throat. The green-eyed demon comes back out from the back room a few minutes later, makes a big deal of sitting down in Levi’s chair, and starts to twiddle his thumbs while he waits. And he’s only sitting, but Jean can feel every ounce of his presence. Fuzzy recollections of pushing Eren against a wall before punching him in the nose, Jean kicked until he’s breathless, his limp body sliding against the concrete before his board was snapped in half all flutter behind his eyes. His head pulses. Now he’s thinking of Annie, Bertl and Reiner, their burly bodies and Eren’s sinister grin. He wonders where the rest of them ended up. How far away they’ve already gotten. He guesses that they’re all probably living their own separate lives right now, no longer an unstoppable trio of badass skaters but maybe college students with a questionable past.

Eren starts to click his tongue to entertain himself. Oh god, if Marco lets go of his hand he might just keel over and die.  
“What the hell?” Jean hears Eren say over his shoulder, followed by a short laugh. “Is that yours?”  
Jean glances to where he’s pointing—his maneuverboard, leaning right next to him against the desk, like always.   
“Yeah, it’s mine. What’s it to you?” Jean deadpans, his voice so scratchy that he has to try to clear his throat. He opens his mouth afterward to maybe tell him “your boyfriend got it for me, suck my dick” but then he imagines Levi’s reaction to something like it. Plus, he’d rather just have a sore throat than five new broken bones.  
“So Levi actually did it.”  
“What?” Jean asks. He feels like he already knows what’s coming, but he hopes for a chance that it isn’t what he thinks it is—until he finally flickers into Eren’s eye contact.  
“I got that maneuverboard for graduation but never used it. Too cheap—the axels are rickety as hell.” Jean feels his blood run cold. No. _No_. “I was just gonna trash it; but Levi said he’d find someone dumb enough to use it.” Jean sees a smile tugging at the corners of Eren’s mouth as he goes back to clicking his tongue. So Jean forcibly removes Marco’s hand from his as he scrambles to his feet, only to be pulled back into place by Marco’s hand bunched in the back of his shirt. Eren doesn’t see; only narrows his eyes in confusion at how fast Jean has sat back down. Jean is given seconds to calm down before the feeling of the bunching of his shirt disappears, and Jean sees it in the corner of his eye. The screw of Levi’s chair being twisted—one, two, three times by tan fingers; and then Eren is falling to the ground off the back of the chair in a pile of boyish limbs and bottled up adrenaline. Jean doesn’t stop himself from laughing, no matter how badly it hurts.  
“Eren, what the hell did you do,” Levi asks, expressionless, as he comes out of the back room. Jean turns back around toward his things, silent, as Marco’s hand comes back to him moments later under the desk. Marco gives it a reassuring squeeze, but Jean still feels his eyes brimming with tiny, hopefully unnoticeable tears. He knows what this means, why Eren knew it would tear what’s left of his ego down. He’s using Eren’s old board. An unwanted one. Something that wasn’t even good enough for someone like Eren Jaeger.

He doesn’t talk to Marco about it later, because he just won’t get it—what’s the problem with using an old board, anyway—it’s the principal. It might just be his bitterness reflecting off of high school, but within those smug sentences Eren had said that Jean’s a reject, too.

A failure with a maneuverboard to match. Funny how that turned out.

  
It’s when they spend almost an entire shift perpetually ignoring each other that Jean says it. 

“Something on your mind?”

“Not really,” Marco says, an obvious lie. Why else would he be blankly staring at a wall for two hours? Jean sets his jaw. He can’t believe he expects him to buy that.  
“You’ve been a little quiet today.”   
“I spent seventy years staying quiet. It’s sort of a first reaction for me.”  
Jean laughs softly with him, but watches him out of the corner of his eye. The music from the record player plays softly in the background, a guitar solo filling the silence.

Jean’s got a lot on his mind at the moment, if he’s being honest. The feeling of Marco beneath his hands. The looks of his mom screaming at him. What Sasha might be doing right now, so far away. All tiny thoughts; just magnified into a massive picture that Jean can’t seem to escape from. Marco sees him looking, and Jean jerks away.

“Caught you,” Marco murmurs. Suddenly he’s next to him, nuzzling his shoulder softly with his forehead before Jean has to turn toward him and kiss his hairline.  
“I’ve spent a lot of time alone, Jean. Sorry if I’m acting strange.” Jean opens his mouth to answer, but Marco speaks softly, eyes closed with his head on Jean’s shoulder. “It was easy at first, pretending I was alive with you, but I’ve been dead for a lot longer than you’ve even been alive. Alone is what I’m used to. It’s what I am.”  
Jean rubs a hand over his face. “Me too.”

“No, Jean, you’re not alone,” Marco sighs. Jean snorts, letting out a tiny ‘as if’ that Marco wasn’t supposed to hear. But Marco lifts his head and locks those brown eyes on Jean’s for the first time in maybe a week. “Jean, be quiet. You might not think it but your mom loves and cares about you, your friends care about you, Levi and Hanji care about you.”  
“They don’t—“  
“I’ve heard them.”  
“Well _you_ can’t be alone if I love you, right? That’s what you’re saying.”  
“It’s not the same.” He pauses for a minute, until Jean almost forgets what they were talking about. “I love you too,” he adds. His gaze on Jean has gone almost fuzzy, still looking at him, but almost through him, like it’s Jean who’s disappeared this time.

When Jean next tries to make conversation, he’s met with silence or few worded answers, and he knows. Marco has gone into his memory-state, spine straight and looking out toward something only he can see. Jean can almost see him recognize each flash as it passes by Marco’s eyes.

Jean wishes that he could say things were like they were before between him and Marco, back when it was warm. But now Jean spends more time focusing on his working rather than slacking off to talk with Marco. Besides, there was a good chance that he might not even answer him if he tries. Even a few of their kisses feel forced; like they’ve both got better things on their mind to focus on rather than each other. Once, when Jean falls asleep at his desk, Marco doesn’t even wake him up; a customer does. Marco wasn’t paying attention and Jean had to wake up in a pile of his own drool by a middle-aged woman in a faux-fur coat.

Are his memories really that important? Jean is so selfish to want to know what Marco’s remembering even though he wishes they’d never started in the first place. How much was he remembering? And why was he not telling Jean about them anymore; instead just making small talk with him about anything but?

Jean takes his frustration out on the books, stamping them with vigor, organizing and reorganizing shelves while Marco’s off in his own world.

 

There’s an unexpected call from Armin as Jean’s packing up to leave for the night that Sasha and Connie have agreed to go out to lunch with them the next day; just four friends that haven’t been properly together in more than two months. Jean embraces the treat of quality food even though he’s paying for it himself, and being out and about with his friends in the chilly autumn makes his insides feel more than lukewarm. It’s not like Marco is paying much attention to him lately anyway, so he guesses that leaving the boy for a few hours wouldn’t hurt either of them too badly.

Jean shoves a mountainous bite of barbeque ribs in his mouth, makes a satisfied noise, and then glances up to Armin looking at him like he’s just killed a man. Jean rolls his eyes at him. It’s barbeque sauce on his hands, not blood. 

Connie laughs after he’s guiltily wiped his hands off on a napkin. “You need to get out more, man. Have some self-respect.” Jean forgot that not everyone was okay with him shoveling down food like a vacuum at the late hours of night, like Marco used to be. Jean tells them all to shut up, and Sasha high fives him with her sauce-covered hands after they both dive back in together.

And as the hours move on, and Jean can find it pretty easy to pretend things have never changed; that they haven’t moved on too far from him during this time. Sasha says she loves it at college, Connie’s place in New York is a hit with his wild parties and Armin is excelling in every class, as is expected.

“Are you going anywhere, Jean?”

“Um, no.”

“Never?” Sasha chows down three nachos in one bite. And he’s the obnoxious eater.

“Not that I know of. I think I’m just gonna keep working at St. Maria’s.”

“But…what about your life?” Connie elbows her.

“To be honest, I don’t really know what to do.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know!” They all lean forward a little in expectation of some sort of explanation. Jean didn’t know that the afternoon was going to go in this direction. “My moms guilt-tripping me every second about everything, but I really just want to stay at St. Maria’s.”  
Sasha stuffs in a few more nachos. “I get it. You like the stability of it. But you’re gonna have to move on eventually,”

“Sasha,” Armin warns. Jean’s food sticks uncomfortably in his stomach. Marco’s distant gaze comes to mind, followed by their first kiss, then the feeling of Marco’s heat-less, unclothed body pressed against his while hard rock plays in the background.

But even if Jean left the restaurant feeling like a hole had been drilled through his stomach, he can’t help the giddiness of interaction with his friends that comes into his smile when he goes to work that night. Marco is reading one of his favorites; one that Jean read as well and actually enjoyed; standing with his back against the wall.

“Guess who has leftovers,” Jean says, waving the white box over his head. Marco looks up, gives a small smile along with an almost sleepy expression. “Armin didn’t want his burger, so I got that too. Sure you don’t want any?” He winks over at his ghost, setting the box down along with his things. He swallows when Marco barely reacts. Jean tries to pull his grin back to his face.

“Armin and Connie say hello, by the way. Sasha is extremely smug that she thinks she set the both of us up.” Marco stays quiet, as he has been lately, and just keeps his small happy smile. Jean eats through half the box before Marco speaks. 

“So you liked visiting with them? Going out, getting food.” Jean takes his soft and wispy voice with surprise, stopping mid-bite.

“Of course I did.” He’s still thrown off, as Marco turns back toward his book. “It was almost like old times. Except now they’re all out doing things that don’t involve me.” He breathes a laugh through his nose, then moves over to where Marco is still sitting motionless. 

“What’s wrong?” He asks.

“Nothing’s wrong, Jean. My book’s boring, that’s all.”

“But it’s your favorite.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Then you could always pay attention to me,” Jean says, and Marco almost looks sad, as Jean almost asks what’s wrong again. But he reaches for Jean’s neck while Jean decides it’s better to stay quiet, strokes it once with his thumb, then pulls their heads together.

  
Just as Hanji and Levi leave for the day, Jean finishes off his coffee and salutes them a final goodbye. Hanji jumps right back in the door without warning and reminds him to read over a draft of one of her final chapters and he makes a noise of affirmation between bites of his McDonalds burger partnered with a thumb up. Levi ducks back in the door as well, just to tell him to chew with his mouth closed. Then the door closes, the store settles, and Jean finishes off his last few bites of burger. When the wrapper is thrown away and when Jean stands up, he realizes what’s wrong.

“Marco?” He asks, leaning forward to look down one of the aisles. The hell? He’s usually out here within seconds of them leaving. Maybe he’s being cautious because of the time Hanji forgot her keys and he and Marco said their hellos; maybe a little more than talking, really; and Jean had to pretend that he was just reaching at a shelf of books with his shirt pulled halfway up his stomach. Yes, Hanji looked at him a little strangely after that, but she’s not here now. Hanji’s gone out to get her car and who knows where Levi goes of to. So what the hell? Where is he?

Even if his limbo came back he would’ve said something. “Marco,” Jean says, louder.

“Marco—” He starts to say more, but stops himself. Maybe it’s a few of the denser memories that Marco had mentioned. Jean sinks back into his seat, shoulders tense. He’ll come out when he’s ready, and Jean will listen to him tell the story of his life in another dreaded bit. Besides, maybe it’d be good for both of them to have a day without each other, Jean thinks, as he decides to maybe text Armin instead.

He’s got a couple hours before work, and Jean is going through a stack of college pamphlets that are still finding their way into the Kirschtein mailbox. His mom had passive-aggressively shoved them all in a pile next to his coat, so that Jean has to walk by it every day before he heads out. And now, alone in his house, Jean picks one of them up. Well, the logo sure makes it seem legit. But he knows they’re all bullshit; that he belongs with Marco. Not surrounded by people who actually want to go somewhere in life. He belongs here, in this place where only Marco wants him. Where only Marco needs him. Besides when he’s if in his own other world, that is. The world that he hasn’t been sharing much of lately.

He does need him, doesn’t he?

Marco didn’t even say hello to him yesterday. Jean can’t lie and say that he isn’t a little bit bitter about it. Even if he’s in one of his catatonic states, he could still attempt to let Jean know he’s still okay, right? Jean narrows his eyes down at the friendly logo on the booklet he’s holding, the smiling college students so obviously posed together so as to pull suckers into the façade. But even so, when he pulls his bag over his shoulder, Jean stuffs a few of the pamphlets inside before closing his bag up again and grabs his coat along with it. There’s a slim chance that he’ll actually go through them later, but it couldn’t hurt to bring them along, right? As he steps onto his board and zips his jacket up to his neck, he doesn’t really know why the feeling of those pieces of bullshit paper against his side make him feel so different.

It’s movie night again in St. Maria’s. Marco had, in fact, been in memory-mode for a couple days, but he didn’t say much of anything about what any of these memories were about. Even though he doesn’t want to hear it, Jean also wants to know if he was remembering other things about those police boys, about who was his first kiss, if he was ever sad, or mad, what were his passions in his old life. Why hadn’t he told him?

“Where’s your phone?” Marco asks. Jean realizes he’s forgotten to take it out.

“It’s in my bag,” Jean says, and Marco teleports from where he was sitting to Jean’s bag around the back of his chair. And only when he hears papers moving past one another does Jean remember with the immediate thought of _oh, shit_. Jean feels his ears prick up, listening for the sound of Marco rummaging through his bag. Maybe he hasn’t noticed them. Jean looks over to him, and Marco is looking back at him, the look on his face nearly breaking Jean’s heart in half. He found them.

“You’re going to college?”

“What? No! I’m just looking…I’m looking through them, just for fun!” Marco stares down at one, and his hands dissolve before the paper slips through. He catches himself, his fingers reappearing to grab the pamphlet before it hits the ground. “I’m not leaving you,” Jean reminds the both of them, as Marco places it back in the bag and reaches for Jean’s phone this time. Marco doesn’t say a word through the whole movie, and the arm around Jean’s shoulder is tapping out distracted rhythms the whole time so much so that Jean can’t focus, either.

  
Marco disappears for two whole days after that. Jean barely notices, his eyes usually locked on the clouds moving across the sky, or watching customers milling around the nearly vacant bookstore all day.

But it’s so quiet. It’s too fucking quiet. All Jean can do is think. And before he knows it the clock’s ticking is getting on his nerves and a passing car makes him jump and finally Jean slams his book closed and calls Marco’s name.

Nothing.

There’s not many places to check, but Jean knows a place where he hasn’t yet tried looking yet.Jean tears the back door open and whips his head both directions, searching the small alley, before he settles on something in front of him. Marco is a shimmer, a mere glimpse of a boy sitting against the wall, hunched over and silent, but Jean runs to him in the gloom, whisper-screaming for him so that people passing by on the street won’t think he’s insane.“Marco!” Jean whispers. Marco raises his head, his skin perfectly fine, no carvings in his skin, just a sleepy expression and the daze back in his eyes. “Is this where you’ve been?”

“Yeah.”

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me? I started to think that maybe you’d disappeared forever or something.”Marco mumbles something under his breath. Jean comes down to his level, needing to feel him again. The few days alone have been just a little too much for him. He reaches for Marco’s neck, kisses him hard on the mouth, then pulls him in close.

“You scared me.”

“I was busy.” Jean’s half-closed lids snap open. Does he sound _annoyed_? Like Jean was interrupting something important? Jean pulls back.

“Busy doing what?”

“Remembering.” Oh. He’s staring down at the ground, not yet even bothering to look up at Jean for a second.

“What do you remember?” Jean tries not to make it look like he’s hurting, but he’s waiting for Marco to say something that just might rip him apart.

“A lot.”

Jean shivers, a gust of wind going down his shirt. “Come inside. Come on.” Marco moves his arm away from where Jean was holding it.

“Just give me a couple hours. It’s still coming to me.”

“Are…are you going to be okay? Are they good things?”

“Yes, Jean, now go. Please.” Jean stands slowly, Marco slowly sliding down the alley’s wall and his eyes so glazed over that Jean might have thought he was looking at a corpse, if only the boy hadn’t disappeared seconds after. Jean watches the empty air for a few seconds, hair falling into his eyes, letting out tiny breaths and clenching his fists he aches to tell the boy to please, just come back.

 

Jean feels a draft coming in towards the back. The music must have drowned out the sound of him opening the door. Jean rushes over to where the cold air is coming from, and when he nears the back door he sees Marco standing in the doorway, looking out into the alley, eyes tipped toward the sky, looking up into the early night.

“Marco? You’re letting the cold air in.”

“Oh, sorry. I forgot about that.” He walks outside instead of turning around and starts to close the door behind him.

“Wait. Wait up,” Jean calls, walking out after him. He hasn’t taken his coat again and it’s even colder than before, but Marco doesn’t even turn towards him to notice.

“I think I know how I died.” he says, maybe to only himself. But Jean is still standing, freezing, his mind finally sticking on a few gears.

He can barely squeeze the next word out. “How?”

Marco doesn’t miss a beat. “Car crash. I crashed my new Bel Air.” The air stands perfectly still, suspended as Marco faces away from Jean and towards the sky. His arms are starting to fall away, like he’s losing control of it, and Jean is left, panting, tears coming to his eyes and the air prickling his skin. “It must’ve been a night a lot like this. I drove into the wrong lane and into a massive semi. Right in front of St. Maria’s.” Each word is a punch to Jean’s stomach, each emotionless word that comes from Marco’s mouth a deadly reminder. It was easy to forget that Marco was dead, with all of his selfishness taking the front seat in every one of his thoughts. But with Marco standing in front of him, Jean remembers he’s not just a ghost, Marco is _dead_. Who was he kidding. Marco died. And now Jean has a stunning visual of it. “And then I guess I died.” Marco continues to fade, bit by bit, until it almost looks like the wind has carried him away. “I woke up, covered in blood…and the limbo began. I walked into St. Maria’s and never came out again.”

“Could you come back so I can kiss you?” Jean asks, wiping a sleeve across his face, as Marco just stays a slightly visible veil of light.

“Just give me a few more days, Jean. I need to keep thinking this over.” He ignores Jean when he reaches for him and is gone again. Jean doesn’t cry too hard for him when he walks back inside. It’s the emptiness of his arms that hurts more.  
Jean closes early and leaves, chilled to the bone and telling himself to stop fucking crying, you knew he was dead, _you knew_.

He did know. But it was still easy to forget.

 

 _Just one more day without Marco_ , is what Jean continues to tell himself. He’ll be back soon enough, once he gets the hang of those memories. He’ll be back.

But when he does return, Marco seems so indifferent, moving to pick put a book among the shelves with only a quiet greeting when suddenly he’s back inside. His bright smile has waned to a straight line, the air of happiness around him has deflated into a look that matches the late fall’s grey clouds. Jean watches him from the end of the aisle, arms crossed. “Do you feel different?” Jean asks.

“More or less.” Jean rubs the back of his neck. Well, that answered the question.

“Any new memories to share?”

“Maybe later, I’m not in the mood for it.”

Jean gives himself maybe five seconds before he’s saying it. “So why are you being such a dick to me?” Marco turns toward him, eyes wide.   
“I’m trying to make it hurt less.”

“You’re hurt?”

“I’m going to be, if you stay here.” And just like that, the peace is shattered.  “I already know you want to leave, Jean.”

“No, I don’t.”

 “Don’t fucking lie to me—” Marco hisses, and Jean moves toward him, but Marco sees him coming from miles away and the book he was holding is placed back on the shelf before he’s gone. Jean bares his teeth when he walks right through where Marco had been.

“So what if I do want to leave—I won’t! If that’s what you want then I won’t!”

“It’s not my decision!” Marco shouts, and Jean runs toward the voice from where it’s echoing across the room. “I remember who I am, I’m happy. You don’t need to feel like you have to stay…I’m not lonely!”

“I’m not staying out of pity!” Jean yells. He finds Marco again in the next aisle. He’s quiet, simply looking down again. Jean feels like the universe is closing in on him, his rage that he keeps a cap snug on starting to break free. But it feels different; all consuming, while the universe spins around him.“I just don’t even know how to act around you, okay?” Jean spits. “Am I supposed to be pitiful? _Okay_ with the fact that your dead? Wanting to hear about the gruesome way you died or how you got milkshakes with your friends seventy years ago? _Fine_ with the fact that you can never leave this goddamn bookstore and that you don’t have any idea of what the world is really like? I don’t fucking get it. Even if you remember your old life, there’s still the one that you’re living with me in it. But you act like I’m not even here, like I don’t even matter. I’m all you have, Marco! You don’t exist to other people, the only person you have is me!”

“But I don’t need you.” He’s standing in front of the back room now, hands in his pockets, the cut on his forehead starting to leak blood down his cheek and to his neck. Jean swallows.

“What?”

“I don’t want you anymore.”

“What?” The world almost does fall away from Jean’s feet. “Why? What did I do?”

“You’re—” Marco bites his lip for a second, and he fades out right after Jean sees a hint of tears. Jean stares where Marco’s voice is coming from. “You’re selfish, you’re arrogant, you never know what’s best for you. You’re hurting me just by being around.” Jean can feel himself still breathing, still straining to listen to the voice in front of him. “And I’d be happy if you left.”

“You…I…you mean that?” Jean sees Marco straighten, coming back into view, pushing his hands further in his pockets.

“Yeah. You were just something to keep me occupied.” He takes a deep breath and Jean feels the pain along with him, spreading out from his center. “It didn’t mean anything.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Marco. Please…” Jean can feel his demeanor falling. “I love you, dammit. You’re just saying this to make me leave.”

“Maybe I am. But I’m still saying it.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“Yes you are.”

“I’m not.”

“Just get out!” Jean’s never seen Marco look so terrifying; teeth bared, blood coming further down onto the collar of his shirt, brown eyes glaring at Jean as he takes another painful breath. “You’re hurting me by staying here. You’re hurting me.” His voice is shaking now, hushed, pointed. “Just pretend I never existed. Pretend like I’m not real. I’m not real.”Jean’s lip is shaking. He shoves it down, pulls his shoulders back. He’s hurting him. He can’t hurt him.

Jean may have felt something building, some tension between them, but he never wanted this. But apparently Marco has. He had said that he didn’t need him. That even Jean’s pure presence is making him unhappy. That he doesn’t want him.

Even it’s all just a cover, if Marco is just saying this to get him to leave, Jean feels like his insides have been sliced open, and as he starts to move, they might just spill out all over the floor.

He must have meant it.

“I guess not,” Jean murmurs. He walks over to grab his bag, never once looking at the boy next to him. He shoves the college pamphlet that had somehow strayed to the counter back into his bag and shucks on his coat. Then, he takes his board from the ground, the cool plastic solid in his hand. Marco has turned away from him, his shoulders shaking as he walks toward the back room, already disappearing. Jean can feel hot, stinging tears coming to his eyes when he knows that this is all he might ever see of the books that line these walls, the boy in the white shirt now starting to stain with blood walking away from him. But he can’t stop himself from turning around, his face red and his old self tearing through him. “Just fucking disappear, then. I wouldn’t even care if you did. Do what you do best. Just disappear.” He opens the door, and doesn’t look back.

_And I will, too._

He does look back. He’s sobbing and shoving his face in his hands and bawling when he looks back up the street. Everything is blurry behind a screen of tears, and when he tries to blink them away, he looks back. There’s nothing but an empty store, lights off, completely empty. Not a living soul inside.

 

Swiping snot across his face and blinking all the tears away, Jean moves mechanically, until he’s on his board and moving against the wind pummeling him to the ground. His mind works on auto pilot until he’s back home, the simple thought of needing to leave the one that keeps him going. His mom is still asleep upstairs and he moves quickly, precisely, finding clothes and his money that he’s prepared for this moment, and then shuts the door softly with a final, sentimental click.   
Two hours later he’s staring out the window of a train at midnight heading for New York City.

He might’ve been thinking about a plan before this, though they were always pushed back by the thought of never possibly leaving Marco, so his actions come slightly unrehearsed. He knew he couldn’t go far enough by bus so he’s taken a train instead, and the only preparation in his minds is after finding his way to the city he’s going to try to find Connie.  
He’ll call up Levi tomorrow. Tell him that he quits, that no, he’s not coming back, give his job to someone else; he’s headed out to the city and that he’s better this way. Much better. No misery weighing him down whatsoever.

Jean yawns, leans his head into his hand, and sniffles for the thousandth time. The other exhausted passengers in his train car have got to be annoyed with him—a red-nosed, slumped over, messy kid lying against a seat alone under the fluorescent lights. He can’t help it anymore. His eyes feel puffy and they sting ever time another tear slips through. He pulls his hood even further up over his head, settles further into the seat, and sniffs again. The tears may have finally stopped, and instead the doubt of what he’s doing leaves his muscles unable to unwind. He’s not sure of what his plan is going to be once he gets to town. Marco doesn’t need him, or love him, though. So he’s not sure of much of anything anymore.

 

Jean stands at the entrance to the train station, unknowing of what his next step might be. Damn, it’s so cold. He hadn’t bothered to grab a better coat in his haste, and now this is the only one he has. So Jean starts to walk to keep warm, aiming for light, for distraction, for anything.

It hits him at about three in the morning, standing at a crosswalk waiting to walk past. Eren Jaeger was right. Right about everything; from Mikasa to the fact that he’s a shit employee. Jean almost laughs to himself. He finally gets away from Eren Jaeger and he’s still there, tapping at him in the back of his mind. Poking him with the reminder that he’s worthless. That no one, not even an actual dead man, could love him. And now he’s trying to be a free spirit? Hell, Jean can’t even focus on the ground in front of him. He’s trapped inside his own goddamn mind.

But Jean finds himself forgetting to move his feet, forgetting that he’s supposed to be doing anything. Marco doesn’t love him. He never did. Jean wants to tear flesh clean off his bones, just be rid of the crawling feeling under his skin. He thought Marco did love him…he thought…

And at first, when there’s still fatigue in his bones, everything reminds him of Marco, too. That dingy puddle of oily water that reflects light like his eyes. The smell of the air was the freedom he yearned for. But Jean kicks the puddle and walks, swearing at himself. And finally it settles into blankness as the night begins to lighten into early morning.

“You want any?” a stranger asks him on the street, poking the corner of a plastic bag from his pocket. Jean cocks an eyebrow, refuses, and then walks away as the guy calls him a colorful string of filthy words. Jean pulls back tears and picks up the pace. Yeah, he’s not going to be a police officer. Not if they have to deal with stuff like that all the time. Maybe he just won’t be anything at all.

The first of his money is spent on a cup of coffee, while stopping to warm himself amongst other shivering bodies in the crowded café. They don’t ask for his name as he sits in the corner, and he doesn’t ask for theirs. It’s the feeling of being nameless in a group of people, in the entire city, that makes Jean feel especially small. It’s comforting, then unnerving. No one would know if he’s simply out for coffee or if he’s just gotten his heart ripped from his chest. He’s simply another face, once again. This big world he’s begun to enter is bigger than he thought, and as he sits alone, not so great.

It’s the cold that finally gets to him. He can’t take this anymore; he’s got to stay with Connie. Jean calls him up finally, defeated, and Connie greets him with ‘it’s about time you called me. Where are you?’ His invitation to stay with him is accepted, and Connie tells him that he’s on the other side of town, to which Jean mutters that he’ll be there by midnight. He just needs a little more time to sort things out.   
Jean spends most of the day walking, since riding his board now only reminds him of who else has set foot on it. He occupies himself instead; enters small shops, gazes into the eyes of strangers and leads his puppet body around. 

It’s almost nice to know that Marco knows about his life, at least. Jean picks up a ceramic bowl just because, presses his fingers into the creases, feels tears sneak up on him again. He doesn’t love Jean. None of it was worth it to him; the nights they spent holding each other was just to give Marco something to hold on to. Jean is just very easy to let go, it seems.

The buildings rise high into the sky and Jean feels small, so infinitesimal, so tiny amongst the bundled bodies moving next to him. The current of human commotion is strong and he follows it, around and around in a dazing circle of flesh until it’s pitch black and he’s back standing at the edge of the train station, warming himself under one of the lights.He can feel Marco everywhere around him, like he might just step out of the shadows at any moment, take him back into his arms to apologize, tell him that he doesn’t want him to go, but the night stays quiet and still. Jean is better without him. He’s better off. He’s a free man.

He quit two hours ago. Levi didn’t say much. Hanji sounded sad, but Jean knows she’ll find something to distract herself from him in a couple hours.

Jean lifts his eyes from the ground and glances in front of him just as the ringing of an oncoming train is heard a little ways in front of him. A simple, yellow line, is painted onto the cement in front of him. Jean places his board on the ground and takes a few steps forward. He’s felt some pain before; falling off his board was probably one of the worst times, besides the time that he broke his wrist during a skate-off with Eren. How much would it hurt if he just walked a little closer—just the few feet more? He hears the gentle purr of the train clacking towards him, the rhythm of his heartbeat. The pain would be instantaneous. Like the look in Marco’s eyes as he told him to leave before disappearing. It’d be all over in a second.

Jean counts it as maybe the fifth train Jean has watched go by, sailing past him, ruffling his hair as he reaches to pull his hood up over his head.  
He should just head to Connie’s soon.

  
Connie’s hospitality is welcome; though Jean knows immediately that it has to be temporary. He tells him he just needs a week, but Connie tells him two. Even if he’s in class Jean is allowed stay there and decide what to do—his own personal vacation, according to Connie, smiling pitifully when he sees just how horrible Jean looks. He takes a hot shower, puts on one of the few outfits he packed, and sleeps on Connie’s couch until he doesn’t feel anything anymore.

On his third day of living with Connie Jean gets awfully, horribly drunk. It starts with singing Fly Me to the Moon from memory alone on Connie’s couch, then belting it from the balcony of his small apartment. It ends abruptly with violently throwing up over the side of said balcony. Jean wipes his mouth of vomit and still feels his temples pulsing, his entire being shriveled and dry from agony, the sky is a huge and empty mass in front of him. Jean sinks against the wall behind him, watches his breath rise in tiny puffs at last as winter says its first hello. The buildings are magnificent as they kiss the clouds, and the world is vast and beautiful and endless. But all Jean sees are the words of a page brought to life, an idea that ends up being flatter in real life than in the novel of his mind. Jean leans his head against the empty air next to him. Marco would have loved it here, even if Jean thinks that it’s not everything he expected it to be.

Jean dreams. He dreams after doing shots with Connie with a marathon of late night TV playing in the background, while they’re making small talk.

“You’re here because of that boy, aren’t you.” Jean had told him it was because of his mom, which was somewhat true, but he nods earnestly now.

“A little bit, yeah.”

“Getting drunk every night isn’t gonna solve your problem.”

“But it’s gonna help.” Jean has a flashback to his third year of high school, with Connie’s face under the keg and Jean lying on the floor laughing. Connie’s one to talk about the dangers of alcohol.

“Then what happened with him?”

“I feel like alcohol should deal with my problems, and not you.” 

“Marco seemed like a chill guy. It’s too bad.”

“Yeah, well. He was a dead man the whole time.”

Connie laughs softly, and Jean doesn’t see what’s so funny.

  
And so Jean dreams.

Marco’s skin is porcelain; cool under his touch; as Jean drags fingers over his face. Jean leans in, presses his lips to Marco’s chin, to his lips, as the cloud of hazy smoke snakes between the both of them. When Jean reaches again toward Marco’s face and kisses him again, only then does he realize that something is very, very wrong with the body under him. The lips he kissed are ice cold, and when Jean pulls back he sees the bluish color of the lips spreading across his face, like he’s slowly freezing. The unblemished skin falls away into rotting flesh and bone, blood pooling around the both of then as the white cloud they’d been sitting in dissolves like fog into the front of St. Maria’s. Then, Jean sees it; the semi heading straight for them. Marco is still looking up at Jean with a serene smile as his blood soaks into Jean’s skin, silently looking up at him with a dead expression. Jean’s lips are sealed and he’s trying to scream and push Marco away from the wheels rushing towards them, anxiously looking into the eyes of the glowing eyes of the truck as Jean pulls Marco toward him and waits.

  
Connie is on the opposite side of the couch, bag of chips in hand, watching as Jean bolts awake. There are tears across his cheeks, shot glasses on the coffee table in front of them. Connie just looks at him apprehensively and says that he should go back to sleep. But Jean stares blankly at the screen of the TV instead, tugging in each breath before a string is pulled and it leaves again.

 

The city doesn’t make his breath come rushing in like a burst of freedom—it’s constricting him. Connie’s homework makes him cringe just looking at it, his lifestyle is the worst with all the strange new friends he brings over, and Jean knows that he can’t let himself become what he’s leaning towards. He can’t go to college. He can’t stay here.

Some of Connie’s friends take a liking to Jean during some of the parties though; likes the way he drinks and likes his new cynical attitude and soon enough when the two weeks are over Jean asks one of the guys if he can stay with them for the weekend.

Jean is stuck traveling between kind strangers, sleeping wherever he can, for as long as he can. He has enough money to buy food, and his sense of humor gets him somewhere new to stay every couple days. He even stays at once of Connie’s old college professor’s houses, an old army officer turned teacher named Erwin, who only has a futon that he can lend to Jean for a couple days.

But Jean runs out of people, eventually. A month has passed since he’s seen his mom or his friends and a month since he said his name out loud. So, in another coffee shop trying to steer the fatigue away from his eyes, Jean calls Armin from a payphone after his phone died a few homes ago. He should have called so long ago, and Armin’s probably worrying even though he shouldn’t, so Jean waits for he sound of Armin telling him off through the line.

“I was going to tell you,” Jean says, after Armin asks where the hell he is. Jean regards his profanity with a smile, and twirls the cord of the payphone around his finger. “I’m in New York.”

“What happened with Marco?” Armin asks immediately. His name stirs something in Jean that he can’t push away now.

“Um, could I tell you something?” Jean says, pressing a hand over his face. Just say it. You’re insane already. Just say it into the phone.

“Yeah,” Armin says, hesitant.

Something, a sort of dam across his heart, breaks as Jean spits into the phone “Marco’s a ghost and he couldn’t leave St. Maria’s and he could disappear and do all sorts of cool shit and he broke my heart, Armin. I don’t even know what happened he just kept looking sad all the time and told me to leave and…I can’t just stay away from him forever. I don’t want to bum around for the rest of my life but I just can’t stay in one place if he’s going to act like I shouldn’t be there.” Jean waits. He doesn’t cry, it’s been too long. He can barely feel the sting anymore. Armin sighs into the phone.

“I think you should be thankful that I’m going to try to believe you,” Armin says loudly into the phone. “Because if I was anyone else I’d assume that you’d just dove headfirst into the cement and you’re saying complete crap right now.”

“I swear I’m not, Armin. I haven’t told anyone ever, because I know it sounds insane.”

“He’s a ghost?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.”

“I know. I have no idea.”

“He wanted you to leave him?”

“That’s what he said.”

“Are you sure he didn’t just want you to do something like what you’re doing right now? Exploring the world? You used to preach to me about you doing something like this, and I’m gonna guess you did the same to him.” Jean adjusts the phone, Armin’s voice still surprisingly steady for how Jean is still shaking. “Maybe he just felt guilty for holding you back.”

“I…I guess.” Jean doesn’t remember much from that night, but Marco had said that he was hurting him. Hurting him over what, staying? Because he was…guilty?

“You want to go back to him?” Armin asks.

“More than anything.”

“Then stay with him, then.” Jean breathes into the phone with a tiny laugh, and he’s sorry that Armin has to hear him get choked up.

“I’m sorry I broke you and Eren up, I’m sorry for being a piece of shit. Come visit me at St. Maria’s sometime, okay? Love you Armin, I’ll see you soon.” Jean hangs up the phone and jumps on his board for the first time in what seems like forever, finally given a purpose to jump his board high off a flight of stairs before smoothly landing again before he takes off at high speed towards the train station.

 

Jean rounds the corner after getting off of the bus that would take him a couple blocks away from St. Maria’s, panting even though he’s only on his board. Even if it’s just to say he’s sorry, that he still loves him, even if Marco shuts him out again, he has to do something. He has to show him that he knows now, that he doesn’t need the entire sky as his home, just a small section of it, just the part with Marco within it. That he doesn’t need to feel guilty about college or Jean seeing the world because he doesn’t care anymore, _he doesn’t care_. Jean chucks his board into the bushes and sprints up the walkway before he sees something different, something that makes his blood run cold.

The sign above the door with the profile of St. Maria’s face is missing, just a blank space above the door where it should be. And Jean stares at the closed blinds and the FOR RENT sign in the window of the door for a long time, fingers hovering over the knob, before biting his tongue to stop a sob.

Jean runs to the alley. He shouts Marco’s name as loudly as he can, obnoxiously pounding on the back door, but there’s no response after minutes of waiting and crying and shouting.

Jean waits for hours, saying his name over and over, until he falls asleep curled up on the back step.

 


	5. Part Five

Stop pacing, stop it _, fucking stop it,_ Jean hisses to himself after he’s walked the same four feet a block from his house for what feels like an eternity. He needs to move his feet, move them somewhere meaningful. Anyplace but here, where the people within these houses are probably watching him like he’s insane. He lets out a tiny groan. _Just do it._

He called Hanji a couple hours ago. Apparently she never had the heart to tell him. She burst into high pitched wails over the phone and Jean let his tears fall silently while she gave him the final news that he’d already realized; they lost St. Maria’s Books. Over seventy years of service wasted because of low sales. According to Hanji’s barely recognizable voice over the phone—people just didn’t need paperbacks anymore.

Jean couldn’t tell her why he really sounded so broken. She told him it’s all right, but continued sobbing herself, efforts wasted. She told him to visit; that she’d make dinner or let him stay a night, anything but let him slowly become a stranger. The persistent grumbling in Jean’s stomach while on the phone almost made him accept the offer right then. But he wasn’t ready to see Hanji yet. There’s someplace else he needs to go.

 So here he is. Only a few streets away from his house, after over a month of not seeing it and barely missing being stuck within its walls. But on the train ride back and as the tears stuck to his cheeks curled up at St. Maria’s, Jean had realized something. He had heard it in Armin’s voice and he saw it in his own reflection. He could not just leave his mom like this. If all the things she said were true for the past four years, then he had to make it untrue. It’d take a while, and it wouldn’t be fun, but he had left her without even a goodbye. He’s still a shit son right now; and he at least needs to say something.

So Jean turns, hops back to his board and chews at his bottom lip all the way until he glides up to the front steps. He feels the entirety of New York City crushing him, as well as the apology that has to somehow come from his lips in a few seconds.

His apology is terrible, and what he receives is only a cold look and a gesture to come in. Jean feels like he’s in a strangers home as him mother wordlessly walks away from him and slams her door closed before leaving him in the middle of the floor, bag slung over his shoulder and his mouth still slightly open, ready to say more. Jean knows he’s close to tears, so he hitches the bag up his shoulder, the buttons clacking against his leg as it shakes involuntarily, and moves up the stairs. He puts away his things, one by one, feeling like this is all too familiar of a process. Coming back to this room was like willingly stepping back into prison, or better yet, stepping back into his mind. So after he sets down every one of his possessions he buries himself in blankets and tries his very hardest to forget.

His mother does not want him there. She makes it very clear by the hour long screaming session that night as he sits curled up in his bed. He feels like a child, wanting to disappear, unable to lash out or scream back. Tears swell up inside of him, but he keeps the dam up; a tumbling wave of grief for Marco and his own life churning behind his eyes. He can still hear what his mom is saying, however. He has a week to figure something out, to find someplace else to live. She won’t deal with his shit anymore.

 

Jean scrapes a hand across his unshaven chin. “So everything has gone to hell, basically.” Armin sighs heavily into the phone as a reply. Jean stands in the middle of a small field filled with dying grass, in the same spot of the park where Armin himself had set up a cute picnic for him and his friends half a year ago. Jean’s found a thicker coat and he’s finally grabbed a beanie to shove his hair into, while Armin talks to him from a college campus hours away.

“I can’t believe they closed it,” Armin says, mostly to himself. Jean blames his watery eyes on the wind.

“Yeah, believe it. Marco would’ve answered the door if he heard me. I know he would have.”

“Then what do you think happened to him?” Jean swallows and looks up. He finds himself staring at one of the last few leaves falling from a tree. It looks as if it’s trying to hold on for dear life, clinging to an empty branch, until it gives up and flies into the bitter cold with the rest of them. A bit of something like that.

“I really don’t want to talk about it, Armin. It’s not good, that’s what.”

Jean hangs up a minute later. He thinks he knows exactly what happened. Jean blows some warmth into his hands, shoves them back into his pockets.

He’s got more important things to worry about right now.

 

Hanji lives in a second story apartment, behind a plain door that couldn’t have ever given away that someone like she could live behind it. Jean had been here once or twice to pick up a couple boxes, but he’d never made it past the front door. Now, when the door opens, Jean says it before he opens his eyes.

“I’m here to save St. Maria’s.” Hanji’s lack of emotion should scare him, but from the way her eyes scream of happiness and the way her lip shakes once should tell him all he needs to know.

“It’s about time you showed up here, squirt.”

 

Hanji’s house is filled to the brim with all of the things he’d expect—The Titans merchandise, from cardboard cutouts to a boxset of all the books and everything other products possible. There’s knickknacks everywhere as well—from the lucky cats from St. Maria’s to the microwave from the back room. It’s while he’s looking through all the incredibly Hanji-like junk when she gets him talking.

“I’m a bit homeless right now, actually” he says when she asks about how his mom took his homecoming.

“Well you’re in a home right now, aren’t you?” Jean whips toward her, and she lifts a Titan mug to her lips before winking toward him. “Since lots of the things from St. Maria’s went to me, I’m going to need some help keeping this place a little more—“ she sets down her mug on the counter and nearly knocks a stack of magazines to the ground. “—organized.” Jean starts to shake his head, thinking that he could never survive working for Hanji, of all people. But he pauses as she places the magazines back in order and glances back to him over her glasses. “Plus, the couch folds out. You’re welcome to stay as long as you need to, Jean.”

He sits down to read the first Titan book that night, after looking around him and thinking there must be a reason why she’s so into these things. And when Hanji walks into her living room with Jean still reading at five in the morning, she just smirks and walks past. His dreams of slaying Titans must be an initiation into Hanji's chaotic world, or at least it feels like it.

The pursuit of Levi begins. Hanji’s out for the majority of the day doing whatever the hell she does, and Jean is left to just call Levi’s phone again, to no avail. So Jean shaves off his stubble among the clutter in his boss’ bathroom, puts on clean clothes just so Levi won’t slam the door in his face, and calls Hanji. She happily gives him the address, and reminds him that even if her home is his right now, that doesn’t mean that everything in her fridge is up for grabs, too.

 

Another doorstep he’s dreading to approach. Jean walks up a spotless yard and knocks on Levi’s door before he can do something stupid like start pacing again. When a shirtless Eren Jaeger answers the door Jean nearly turns on his heels and sprints away.

“Ugh,” Jean breathes, and Eren moves so he stands, feet planted, blocking the entire doorway. Jean tries to look past Jaeger and into the house, but wherever he looks Eren’s pointed stare seems to drag him back.

Jean finally hears the mocking tone that he’d been waiting for. “I thought you finally disappeared,” Eren says. Jean just closes his eyes and breathes.

“Is Levi here?” He asks. Eren stares at him for a couple seconds before Jean’s gaze becomes frantic, thinking that he’ll be damned if this kid is the only thing in the way of him and saving St. Maria’s. Eren must see some turn in Jean’s expression, because he turns away from the boy in the doorway and screams into the house “Levi! Some asshole is here to see you.” Eren waits for a reaction, but Jean just looks anxiously past him into the house. As Levi comes walking up, hair even more out of place than usual and wearing only sweatpants, Jean suddenly feels very overdressed.

“First you quit on me, and then you show up at my house at eight in the morning with that sort of look on your face.” Levi eyes Eren, who backs up so Levi can take his place in the doorway.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, shitface, I know you are. We would’ve lost the store anyway, it was just a matter of time. It isn’t completely your fault.” But by the way his eyes move over whatever lies behind Jean standing there, he implies that most of it was. Jean promises himself in that moment that he won’t cry. 

“That’s why I’m here. We need to get St. Maria’s back.”

“We? Who said I wanted to get that place back? It cost me a fortune.”

“Because! It’s…it’s important, Levi.” The slight spark of interest leaves Levi’s eyes and Jean starts desperately using his hands while he tries to bring the light back. “St. Maria’s is basically an _antique_. You could market it that way! We could remodel the whole place! Market it both towards people who like ancient books and those who just want bestsellers, we could make it so much better. Come on Levi,” Jean knows he looks insane. Levi’s expression shows that he knows too.

“Why the hell do you care so much? You quit.”

“I know I quit.” Jean really can’t say anything more without revealing to Levi that he’s even crazier. Armin may somewhat understand, but Levi? Jean’s taking a risk against his life just by standing here.

“You’re a kid, just go get a new job. You did the right thing by leaving.”

“No, I didn’t! I loved it there. I know you did too.” 

“Just get out of here, Jean.”

“Hanji’s on board with it!” Jean feels his desperate face soften when he sees he’s finally ignited the light in Levi’s eyes. Jean tries to say his words the best he can as he pushes his freezing hands back into his jacket. “And I would work so hard for this, you have no idea. I know I’m a shit employee and I know your boyfriend hates me and I know you hate me but please, don’t give up on St. Maria’s.”

Levi looks down at him from over his nose and Jean feels a snowflake hit his cheek.

“You’re a weird one, Kirschtein.” Jean nods with him as he shifts his weight. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Then the door is closed just as Eren starts to ask about ordering pizza, to which Jean can hear Levi deadpanning _it’s eight in the fucking morning Eren, go to sleep_.

They might get it back. Jean breathes out a cloud of smoke and stares at the closed door in front of him. Then he stares at the closed back door of St. Maria’s for hours, still thinking the same thing.

 

But Jean still knows that something is wrong every time he passes by St. Maria’s closed doors. Something is very wrong with Marco, but there’s no way of truly knowing what. He knows that Marco isn’t answering him, be it pounding on the door or calling his name. But he does it anyway, when the streets are empty and the cold is consuming him. Jean will wait outside the door, staring at the worn down wood until Jean knows that he really is just yelling at a wall.  

There’s a few options; Marco left St. Maria’s somehow, and is living out his life as little ghost boy with no desire to come back to Jean whatsoever. And if that's the case, then Jean can live with it. But the other options are the ones that make Jean’s icy breath heave into the back door.

The limbo finally consumed him. He disappeared all together.

Or he simply doesn’t want to answer.

 

With no news from Levi, Jean focuses on his job with Hanji at the moment. He’s supposed to be cleaning her place, but he’s found himself willingly cooking, editing and basically waiting on her every whim. It’s always to distract himself, but it does the job pretty well.

“But see; I can’t put a comma here. It’ll be a run-on sentence! Jean, learn to write, honestly.” And Jean wipes a hand over his face as he edits out the comma that was causing her such unbearable pain. Hanji’s book is still a work in progress, though a late one. While Jean was off in the city she’d gotten herself a real editor, not just Jean’s half-assed work of skimming pages and telling her everything was fine. Now that he doesn’t have much to sidetrack himself, he reads it, for real this time. And it’s better than Jean remembers, though not extraordinary. Then again, what the hell does he know about writing. Hanji might really be a good writer. Maybe it was when he threw up over Connie’s balcony that all his bitterness about written words fell out of him. Or maybe it’s because she’s all Jean has at the moment, with not a word from his mom in over a week.

“What’s a synonym for ‘particularly’?” Hanji shouts from the other room, and Jean is brought back to his real world, sinking further down into her couch with the computer in his lap.

Levi is off trying to barter back the property of St. Maria’s by arguing that it’s a community landmark after being there for so long. It’s probably working, though Jean and Hanji don’t know much. They’re left to occupy themselves in petty ways, for now, while Levi handles the official things. After she settles to keep ‘particularly’ the same in third paragraph of chapter four (Jean is dying, here), Hanji pushes her glasses up her nose.

“Change the second to last sentence of that paragraph, would you? It’s driving me crazy. ‘About’ to ‘of’, Jean.”  And he edits like he’s told, feeling a headache coming on. Jean knows he’ll need Levi and Hanji’s help with all of this and that on his own he’s just a nearly-broke teenager, save some money he’d been pocketing while he was working all those months, but still. As Hanji walks up and over the coffee table like it’s barely there, he kind of wishes he could somehow save St. Maria’s on his own.

  
Jean’s mom calls him right before bed, as he flicks water from the shower off his hair and suddenly feels his phone vibrating in his pocket. He knows for a fact she’s not calling to invite him back home, so when he answers, he’s ready for any sort of insult or lecture she’s about to give.

Instead, she gives Jean exactly what he needs.

It begins with asking where he is, to which he answers truthfully. He explains St. Maria’s in a short burst, and she mentions that yes, she’d heard about that place closing. And next she tells him that if he’s so desperate for people to realize that St. Maria’s should reopen, why not raise money for it?

And Jean is riding toward his former home ten minutes later.

“It’s not much, but it’s yours.” She hands him a stack of dollars. “That was your college savings. You can give this back to me if you think you’ll go someday. If not, it’s yours.” Then his mother hands him an empty coffee container with a hole in the top and a sharpie banner of “Save St. Maria’s Books” across it.

“Thank you,” is all he tells her. It’s all he really can; they’ve grown so far apart that it’s all that feels right. She pulls him into a very rigid hug, and he hugs her back. It’s quiet, and maybe awkward, but it could’ve been worse. She raised an asshole son who’s trying his hardest to bend into her ideal for that moment. They pull away and he doesn’t look back up into her face. Instead, as he turns away to leave, Jean can practically see the bright kitchen lights above him, smell delicious food in their oven and see a bright smile and color across his mom’s face. For a second, his stereotypical dream flashes before his very eyes. And then it’s gone, and Jean mutters a short goodbye.

  
So Jean collects money during the daytime, and usually comes back by each sunset with a half-full can filled with cash from kind pedestrians who really couldn’t care less. He collects money, cleans Hanji’s house, sleeps on her couch. The routine burns into Jean’s system, until it almost feels like it’s the only thing he’s ever done.

But Hanji can be too much for him, especially at times when he finds himself remembering his purpose for wandering down streets and smiling at unfamiliar faces with a jar in his hand, or why he’s even putting up with Hanji in the first place. So he leaves the apartment whenever he can, even if it means he has to carry around the St. Maria’s collection jar. He moves along gray streets lined with gray faces, under gray skies. Everyone else seems set on the same path as he; walking in the bitter cold to numb not only your fingers. He walks, he gets coffee so he can feel his face again, and walks further. Jean steers clear of St. Maria’s sometimes when it’s too much, after he’s had all this time to mull over thoughts of him along the way.

And when Jean doesn’t leave, Hanji’s windowsill provides the perfect place to brood over his own sorrows late into the night. He drags his fingers over the glass, drawing tiny patterns like the ones that used to litter the corner of their notebooks, spread out on the ground. Jean’s eyes shut and he sees the boy’s see-through smile as he drew the tiny pictures, before the memory fades away. Jean hopes that he’s happy, wherever he is. He hopes so badly that he’s happy.

 

No matter how irritated Jean might get with her, Hanji _can_ cook. Jean guesses he never got to see that over microwave popcorn or boxes of candy during shifts. She insists on making food for all of the formal employees/owners of St. Maria’s on one weekend, as a way to just get them all together after so long. After personal compliments to the chef over actually delicious food and choppy conversation, Jean says it. Hanji is out in the kitchen preparing dessert, and it’s the first time Jean has seen Levi in a couple weeks. Though he hasn’t brought up anything, Jean’s still hoping for news.

“So, did you get—” Levi puts down his fork and Jean stops mid-sentence.

“You’re more dedicated to that damn store than I ever was. And my own father gave it to me.”

Jean can’t do much but swallow. 

“No, I didn’t get the store yet. But, here’s some news for you.” He grabs his fork again, takes one delicate bite. Jean once again wonders how he can stand Eren, who Jean has seen eat before, unfortunately. “If you want it, you can have it.” 

“What?"

“St. Maria’s. If we get it back, we’ll help you start it up. But if you want, the store’s yours.”

Jean nearly breaks his spoon in half. A thousand suns explode inside his head. The only thing he can say through his stuttering mouth is “I have no idea how to run a store.”

“We’ll help!” Hanji cries from the kitchen. Levi’s gaze is just as steady as usual, but Jean starts to tear up, looking down over his plate.

“Thanks.”

Levi doesn’t say anything at all.

 

The official phone call comes at four in the morning, from her publisher all the way in the city. Jean wakes up to Hanji screaming, and his immediate thought is to grab the nearest weapon as he frantically wipes sleep from his aching, puffy eyes. But when he runs into her room with a hairbrush poised to kill he sees Hanji jumping up and down on her bed, her glasses still on the nightstand and the only light a tiny sliver of sunlight through the window.

“It happened! We did it!” Jean’s mind races to the only possible place. “I’m an author!” Even though his spirits fall for a moment, Jean ends up joining her for half an hour in jumping on the bed, giddy even though his eyes threaten to close. She hugs him, shakes his shoulders until he laughs and then she immediately calms down, sitting down on her bed and thinking of the next stage of her operation.

“Oh my god the cover, Jean! What's going to be on the cover?!" She cries, and Jean simply flops face-first onto her bed, and wakes up alone.

 

Jean stops again. He doesn’t know why he keeps stopping just to look at it when he shouldn’t. Not unless Levi calls him and tells him they got it back. Why does he stop again?

He’s made small promises to Marco before, though he’s not listening. They happen only in the moments where he allows himself to remember, which he guesses now is one of those times. He’s promised his ghost to actually trim the bushes out front with care, to fix the peeling siding, to organize the books even more carefully, touching each spine with care. Now, he keeps his eyes fixed on the front windows and promises to get every one of his dumb favorite books back where they belong, even the shitty classics. Every single book that Jean couldn't stand in high school and can't stand now.

Even The Great Gatsby.

 

And on an especially arctic day, when the snow makes manueverboarding anywhere difficult, Jean feels the burning in his lungs as the cold fills him on the way to Levi’s. He has to thank him personally; he can’t just call over the phone. He texted every one of his friends the good news, and he got a few confused messages when he realized he’s been virtually invisible over the past month. At least Armin texted him back with ten smiley faces, which makes the wind hitting his face worth it. Oh god, his lungs are burning, why the hell haven’t these people shoveled yet?

Eren answers Levi’s door again, this time with a shirt, and Jean wonders with a slight sigh if this is going to be a continuing pattern.

“Great,” Eren says, like Jean’s sheer presence is such an inconvenience. “Why are you here? Again?”

“Levi,” Jean says. Eren gives an exasperated sigh.

“He’s not here. He’s off signing papers for your precious book shop or something.” Jean’s stomach jumps. After Eren just looks at him, Jean turns and starts to walk back off of the porch, thinking that he’ll have to actually call Levi and ask him if there’s ever a time Eren _isn’t there_. And then he stops when he hears the door close. He walks back up the porch, back up to knock on the door again. Eren opens it again after only seconds, grimace wider.

“I’m not lying. He’s actually not here.”

“I’d like to take you up on your offer. Way back during the summer, you said we should go boarding together.” Jean says. The way Eren’s face contorts makes Jean raise an eyebrow as he sees right through it. He’s just trying to keep up the act. He knows they’re both tired of it. Jean knew he was tired of it when he looked up to the top of New York’s buildings. Now he looks up at Eren one step above him.

“In this weather?”

“I got here somehow, didn’t I?” Eren looks down to Jean holding his board, his disgust starting to fade right before Jean’s very eyes.

“I don’t like you, Jean.”

“You’re the one that offered it.”

Minutes later Eren comes back out, only wearing a light jacket and carrying one of the most beautiful boards that he’s ever seen. Jean glances at his own board while Eren walks past. It’s Eren’s unwanted one. But Jean still rubs a spot of mud from it and smiles fondly at the painted wings.

Five minutes later Jean realizes that there’s probably not on sane piece of his mind left as he and Eren Jaeger skate side by side, eyeing each other cautiously as they weave through the paths of one another, sailing down the road.

“Where’re we headed?” Jean asks, sniffling away the cold.

“It’s up to me? Such a fucking gentleman.”

“I know.”

“I think I know a place.” Eren turns sharply and heads down a side street, and Jean nearly regrets following him.

 

Goddammit. He should’ve known.

Eren begins to climb the fence above the ‘closed for the season’ sign of the skate park and looks over his shoulder to see if Jean is going to follow. He does, but not before he thinks _fuck Eren Jaeger, thinking that he owns the world._

Jean looks around it all; the little ramps and half pipe. His memory flares back to the first time he and Eren maneuverboarded against each other in this tiny park, Mikasa in the stands, both uninterested and unimpressed. As Jean walks by a few rails, he realizes that this place doesn’t bring back too many terrible memories; mostly just his first bloody nose. The thought almost makes him smile. Suddenly Eren is talking.

“So why’d you leave?”

“The maneuver competition?” Jean asks. He didn’t think that they were actually going to reminisce over the past.

“St. Maria’s. Why’d you quit?” Eren’s voice has gone softer, but still just as menacing.

“Oh, um.” Jean runs a hand through his hair, puts his beanie back over his head. “I wanted to. But I like it there, I think it’s important that it stays open. Yeah…it’s important.” While Jean unsteadily answers, Eren has gone up to the top of the half pipe and is poised for takeoff. “It’s been there for over seventy years, you know. I don’t know how the city even let it close.” Jean watches Eren skate, front wheels touching the top before he sails back the other direction. He even does a few tricks, his eyebrows drawn together in concentration, and Jean finds himself picking up his board. Damn it all, Eren _is_ good. Why did Jean even try to compete with this kid? He was so stupid, honestly.

“I’ll help, I guess.”

“Help with what?”

“St. Maria’s. Once it opens or whatever, I’ll like…carry books or some shit.”

Jean actually laughs out loud. For the first time ever in front of Eren Jaeger. “You don’t like me.”

“It’s Levi’s store too,” Eren snarls defensively.

Jean throws his board to the ground and kicks a foot behind him, going up a ramp and still laughing to himself. The both of them go through the obstacles on autopilot, nothing but the sound of wheels hitting but cement and the grunt of Eren doing some fancy move Jean can’t see.

“I can’t believe you,” Eren says as they pass each other.

“What about me?” Jean asks.

“You’re acting like we haven’t been trying to kill each other for the past four years.”

“I think you may have forgotten our past couple conversations. I’m trying to make things civil, Jaeger. After all, Levi gave me St. Maria’s.”

Eren skids to a stop and nearly launches himself from his board. “It’s yours?”

“Yep. Levi’s the manager, I’m the owner. Which, if you actually decide to help, would make you…my employee.”

Eren’s look of terror doesn’t move as he says “I take it back.”

Jean shreds a rail while Eren still stands in shock and watches, the winter air making Jean actually feel better rather than wanting to curl in on himself like usual. Maybe it’s the cold plastic under his feet, or the way Eren hasn’t thrown a punch yet. Either way, mid-jump Jean actually closes his eyes and feels something.

 

They’re sitting far apart from each other, on opposite ends of the top of a ramp. Jean spins his board’s wheel with his fingers, and Eren continuously unclips and clips the top button of his jacket. It’s not an easy conversation, but neither of them have gotten up, yet.

“You do know that St. Maria’s place is totally haunted, right? You could sell tours to small children and scare the shit out of them.”

“Oh, yeah, totally,” Jean says, forcing sarcasm underneath his voice. “I’m sure they’d be terrified of the leaky ceiling.”

“Shut the fuck up, man. Didn’t you ever see anything?”

“Why, did you?” Jean forces himself to act as nonchalant as he can, spinning the wheel faster.

“I saw him once. I just never said anything.”

“Him?” Jean croaks. 

“Yeah, a ghost. And don’t you dare fucking tell me I’m crazy, so far we haven’t broken each other’s noses and I’m too cold to do it now.”

“When’d you see it? I mean him, him— the ghost.”

“He was like, sort of a mist, moving through the aisles. I thought you saw him too; it looked like you were watching him.” Eren’s lack of harshness in his voice as he recalls the memory makes Jean look up at him before he smiles.

“Why do you think I want the store to reopen?”

“Holy shit, you did see him?”

“Yeah, I saw him all right.”

Eren blows a stream of cold air from his mouth. “For a second there I thought this time I was going to be the pathetic one.” But when Jean glares at him, Eren’s looking back with what could’ve passed for a smile.

“Are you just going to be a dick to me forever?”

“Probably. And you’ll do the same?”

“Of course.”

 

They skate opposite ways home, their conversation dying out and Jean hopping down from the ramp with much less grace than the boy a little ways down from him. Jean is about to head out when he turns around.

“I’m sorry about Armin, by the way.” He can hear Eren snap his teeth together before pivoting his board around. Once he sees that Jean wasn’t trying to hurt him, his scowl falls and he’s left looking anywhere but Jean.

“Yeah well, I guess it’s my fault.”

“Call him. I think he misses you.” Eren stares at Jean for a long time, his eyebrows actually rising from their fixed, heated expression.

“I will.”

 

The keys once again are placed in Jean’s hands, except this time they’re all frantically trying to unlock the front door and Hanji is jumping up and down, trying to get rid of the cold. Jean opens the door quickly, the bell still taking its time to ring a melancholy chime into the air. Levi, Hanji and Eren follow behind, and Jean is the first to inhale a bit of dust. It’s not much, but it’s obvious that the empty place needs some sort of cleaning. Levi makes a noise of disapproval that the rest of them end up mimicking as they watch dust move through streamsof sunlight from the window. Moving forward, Jean hesitates to call Marco’s name as Hanji and Levi start to walk further into the store behind him. He instead looks all around for a sign of him, but bites the inside of his cheeks to keep his mouth shut. There’s nothing, of course. Just empty shelves, a plain desk, a vacant back room. It feels empty. 

“Where’re we gonna get all the books?” Eren asks.

“They haven’t been donated yet, so we’re getting most of them back. But we're gonna clean first.” Levi says. Hanji swipes a finger across one of the wooden shelves, rubs the dust between two fingers.

“That'd be an excellent place to start.”

Jean looks around himself again. Maybe a new start would be good for more than just the store.

 

With the winter weather taking its course outside, the rest of them get to work. Jean polishes the floor, as renovations to the store won’t be happening for a while and he at least wants this floor to look nice for a little while. Renovations were Jean’s idea, of course, but Hanji was on the idea so quickly that she quite literally jumped onto their dining room table directly after Jean suggested it. Besides shitty electrical wiring, the ceiling could give out at any moment. So, after approval by Levi and authorities, in the spring they’ll be doing an entire renovation of the place. Including a second story to the shop, that can be used as a living space. When he first suggested it, Levi stared at him until Jean was sure he was trying to burn a hole straight through him. But Jean was set on it, for reasons unknown. A little apartment above the store, just big enough for himself. That’s all he required.

 He settles into a new schedule, cleaning the store with the others, going through paperwork with Levi. The books come and they organize, re-price, and start to set up the windows again. A huge, handmade sign hangs in one of the windows that says “RE-OPENING SOON!” and Jean waves to people on the streets as they pass and points wildly to it. He’s about to wave to another stranger while adjusting a few books in their stands when he recognizes the shaved head, the brown ponytail buried under earmuffs, the blonde hair blowing wildly in the wind. Jean tears open the front door and shouts a greeting.

“The hell are you guys doing here?”

Sasha walks up the steps to the store, beaming. “We’re here for an order of one Jean Kirschtein, extra insanity please.” Jean hugs Sasha and Connie at once, until each of them are laughing and Jean opens an eye to see Armin standing there.

“Armin,” he says, and hugs him too.

“Anything at all?” He whispers, and Jean only has to shake his head into Armin’s shoulder to tell him.

“You seriously are crazy, man. You reopened a bookstore.”

“And I _own_ said bookstore,” Jean says, with a wide-eyed smile over at Armin. He almost looks proud.

“No college for this boy, no way. Going straight into the business world, huh?” Connie ruffles Jean’s hair as he goes to take a sip of Sasha’s coffee. She tears it away from his face just in time.

“You’re brilliant, Jean. You know that? Insane, but brilliant.” It’s all Jean can do to stay standing, almost of his favorite people in the world standing in the place he’s going to call home.

Jean helps Hanji go into her house to collect all her small knickknacks from her home and transfer them in the store, and when Jean goes home that night he sees a definite change in the amount of space Hanji actually has. Besides all of her Titan merchandise, of course. But at least Jean can take normal steps across the floors without worrying he’ll step on one of Hanji’s thousands of “prized possessions”.

 

Levi would never say it’s Hanji’s book that really saves St. Maria’s, when the rush of work is finally over and it’s back up for business. But that’s totally what happens. Jean may have collected money from people and gotten a bit of attention for the old place, but it’s the release of Hanji’s first novel that brings people to the doors. People see it in the display windows and flock to it, buying copy after copy until they’re requesting even more. Hanji is elated beyond humanly possible when someone even asks her to sign one. It’s her ultimate success, and St. Maria’s makes bank. The entire winter is spent this way, more customers than they can handle, passing Jean in a blur of working, smiling at strangers carrying their books, and attempting sleep in the late hours of the night.

 

But within it all, Jean still finds himself starting to work less for the store alone, but more for what Marco would’ve wanted for his the place that he called home. Each time he sweeps a corner he can see nothing but their soft kisses, can even feel Marco against him. He watches around himself, always looking behind him for some sign that the freckled boy is actually there, not just a group of customers making too much noise in the aisles. He knows by now that it’s pointless to still be looking. He’s gone. And Jean is probably the reason.

Especially on a day where Jean goes in to the store alone does it hit him. He runs in through the door, beginning to shout his name for the first time since he came back, but cuts himself off. It feels like Jean’s breathing echoes across the walls. He’s waiting for a response that’ll never come.

“Come on,” Jean says, and in a sudden wave of anger kicks his canvas bag across the floor. No tears come, just more boiling anger. It travels down to his fingertips, heats his freezing ears. Suddenly he’s talking. “I’m sorry I left you, I know you told me to. I was so stubborn but I understand now, I get that you were just trying to let me live. But I came back! I came back and I got St. Maria’s back. So come back to me. Please. _Please_.” The store creaks into place, and into silence. The snow falls. Jean leaves his bag on the floor.

It’s becoming a habit. He talks to Marco anyway, even if there’s nothing in return. He tells him all about New York, about Armin, about how Connie and Sasha and Christa and Ymir are doing. He tells him that he thinks he saw Annie while grocery shopping for Hanji and literally hid behind a display of crackers for half an hour. He laughs, he dusts, he just sits on the floor and does nothing at all.

“And all these dreams, too. I dream about you all the time. Sometimes I wonder if that’s actually what you were. If you were even real!” He laughs as he taps his pencil against the polished wood until it freezes midair, the sobs racking his entire body. He has to collect himself in the back room, hunched over and silently crying into balled fists before he hears the chime above the door and has to wipe tears on the back of his shirt.

 

The snow melts early, after an unusually warm day in February. Jean turns on the radio for the first time since he left Marco, and since Marco left him. It’s become a subtle ache—something that no longer makes tears jerk too far from his eyes. He’s come to a conclusion; Marco was the best thing that could have happened to him, and he took him for granted. So now he puts on The Beatles and sings along to the voices for hours. He falls in love with the store itself, and not just what it means. It’s not pure happiness, but he’s close enough.

He’d visited Armin yesterday to have lunch together, and Jean had wolfed down a sandwich in minutes while Armin told a detailed story about semester finals. Jean didn’t feel too badly about that either—missing out on college. It didn’t matter. St. Maria’s was his now. Armin had once again asked if there was a sign of anything, and Jean had shaken his head pointedly. He then told Armin that it was okay, to wipe that frown off his face and keep eating before he inhales that entire sandwich for him. He then attempted to bring up the trip to the skate park with Eren, and Armin nearly chokes on his food.

“Shocking, I know.”

“You did what?”

“He misses you, Armin. He told me.”

“I know…we got together a couple weeks ago.” It’s Jean’s turn to almost spit out his food.

“You’re friends again?”

“Don’t act so surprised, Jean.” Armin smiles before he takes another bite. “I promise he won’t replace you. He’s become a bit of an asshole, you know.” And Jean thrusts his soda into the air and waits for Armin to toast the other side.

He and Eren Jaeger are definitely not friends. They tolerate each other, willingly. That’s the easiest way to put it. That trip to the skate park was a one time deal, but he’s at St. Maria’s enough that it’s almost like an unwanted hangout every day. But having him there, knowing that he’s aware of a fraction of Jean’s secret, isn’t that completely terrible. It reminds him that he wasn’t crazy. Plus, Levi’s there to keep him in check.

Jean resets up his work station at the desk, complete with the photo of the party during Junior year, and a tiny strip of paper Jean had found a week ago, tucked in the pocket of one of his hoodies. After being crumbled in his pocket as Jean walked from St. Maria’s all those months ago, it still reads just fine in a messy, penciled scrawl.

“Where are you?”

It’s a question that Jean is constantly asking himself. Hanji’s couch has become his home for now, but where is he? He’s still stuck in between comfort and anxiety. Where is he? He’s in limbo.

But where is Marco Bodt?

 

It’s a late night, so late that Jean feels guilty looking up at the clock. Jean is on sweeping duty, and unpacking some new records and more copies of Hanji’s book. It’s purely by chance that he finds Frank Sinatra’s record buried far back within one of the stacks, and all he can whisper is “oh my god” while his knuckles turn blue around the vinyl. Crackling to life, the store fills with music, and every song makes his feet move in small, enthusiastic steps even though he’s been dead tired for hours.  Some songs bring in the melancholy feeling he’s been trying to avoid, and during those he tries his hardest to just ignore the music around him.

He doesn’t realize that Fly Me to the Moon is playing until he’s singing along halfway through the song and he can’t hit one of the notes. The scene is almost too familiar—golden light, drawing the blinds to the store. It’s so familiar that Jean has to stop where he is and look around himself, check the reflections in the windows. For a second he knows he saw a flash of movement behind him. Or was that a memory? He can barely tell. The song ends and Jean hears himself breathing, broom lying on the ground from when he must have dropped it without knowing. He rubs a hand over his face.

“Oh my god, I love you so much, Marco.”

And he’s alone again.

There’s a noise at the back of the store, like something being thrown to the ground and shattering, and Jean shakes himself out of the trance. Did someone just break in? The back door must’ve just opened from the wave of cold that hits him seconds later. Jean grabs the broom from the floor and walks towards the back of the store, trying to breathe steadily, peeking around the side of a bookshelf and looking into the back hall before feeling his heart stop in his chest. There’s a dark-haired boy sprawled out on his stomach, white button-up clean as snow, slowly lifting his head from where it had hit the ground.

Jean can’t say much of anything at all. There’s a moment of confusion flickering across Marco’s eyes, before they make contact with Jean peering around the bookshelf, eyes wide and terrified. Marco freezes from how he was trying to pull himself into sitting up. They both stay like that until Jean swallows.

“Hey.” Marco says. Jean watches as he gets to his feet, no traces of any rips in his clothes or bleeding on his face.

“Hi.”

“Why are you here?” He asks. Not accusingly, but just questioning. This isn’t real. This is all a dream. Jean starts to shake his head in disbelief before Marco continues. “Since when have you been here? Why am I here? I thought…” He looks down at his freckled hands, fully fleshed, the dim light of the hall bouncing right back off his skin. Jean watches as he makes his hands disappear and reappear, a look of actual shock on his face. Jean can’t believe he’s looking at Marco right now. It looks like Marco can’t believe he’s looking down at himself either. “I thought I was gone.”

“So did I.” Marco looks back up, almost like he’s forgotten Jean was even there. “I waited for you. I yelled for you and I begged for you and you never came back.”

“I didn’t…I didn’t know, Jean.” He looks around himself. “I don’t know where I was. I guess I just woke up. How long has it been? When did all the books come back?”

Jean takes a deep breath of courage and steps out from behind the bookshelf, standing tall in the low-hanging light. “It's been a couple months. I bought the store.” He still finds himself gripping onto the broom for dear life. Marco terrifies him, in the way that he’s standing there like he’s real, not just something he might be making up. “Well, Levi and Hanji helped. I should be saying that _we_ bought St. Maria’s.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

Jean can’t bring himself to smile.

“You’re welcome.”

“Do you have any idea why I woke up right now?”

Jean shrugs, but he doesn’t think he’s actually moved a muscle. “I didn’t even know you were asleep.”

“I think I was dead. Really dead. Why am I back?”

Jean shrugs again.

“I told you to leave—why did you come back?”

Jean swallows. “I think you know why.”

Marco approaches him slowly, and it’s a scene from one of Jean’s good dreams, before they turn sour and Marco falls away in front of him. Jean starts talking without meaning to. “I left you, I did. I left for a month and then I came back because I knew—I know, that I don’t need the world, Marco.” He can barely say his name out loud.

“I was just trying to give you a chance.”

“But I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“And you’re a complete idiot for that.”

“I’m happy here.”

“You’d rather stay your entire life with me? Like this?” Marco makes his himself disappear again, slowly, watching every movement that Jean makes. Jean closes his eyes and nods. When he opens them, Marco's still half a mist. He walks closer, Jean finds himself moving too, until they’re both almost stepping in a circle around each other, like they’re sizing each other up. Every centimeter of Marco’s body is just like he remembers. Jean watches the way he moves; carefully, his hands curling into fists before coming undone again. Jean doesn’t look into his face. He’s afraid of what Marco’s thinking right now, what he's thinking of him.  When Marco gets close enough, they both stand, half a foot from each other, and Jean feels the dream seep away as he looks up. It’s just himself. And it’s just Marco looking back at him. Waves tumble over in his stomach, and something about Marco’s brown eyes and the way his lips start to tip into a smile make him want to be the first one to reach out, if he could move.

“I would have missed you, even if I were still gone.” He lifts both hands up to Jean’s face, solidifying them just enough that Jean can feel Marco’s thumb brush away a stray tear that must’ve slipped out. He leans into it a little, leaning into the first hint of an embrace in so long.

“But I left.”

“I told you to.”

“I could’ve stayed. I was selfish, and arrogant, and—”

“I didn't mean any of that, you must've figured that out. You came back. You bought St. Maria’s, Jean…you brought me back to life,” His voice wavers as his lip twitches. “More or less.” Jean feels himself being pulled forward still, hand coming to rest in the middle of Marco’s chest. No heartbeat, no breath. Jean’s moving blood pounds in his ears.

“Because I still love you.” Jean feels another tear slip out and rushes to wipe it away. Marco smiles, even if Jean isn’t looking up to see it.

“I still love you too.” Jean glances up at the boy above him, whose pained expression changes as he breaks into a smile. It almost hurts them from how they both come crashing in upon each other, immense relief flooding through Jean’s veins as he twists his fingers into Marco’s hair. Marco moves his lips softly, and Jean is adjusting back into his touch, time gone by yet seeming like only seconds without each other. And they're both laughing in between kisses, until Jean finds himself with his back against a wall and pulling Marco's lip away with his teeth. He kisses a few of Marco's freckles, while the other boy finally opens his eyes. 

“Will you stay with me then, Jean? If you want to, I mean.”

“It’s my store, Marco Bodt. You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.”

Marco whispers a soft ‘I love you’ into Jean’s mouth and Jean gladly says it in return.

 “Stay with me.” Marco whispers, very real lips touching the corner of his mouth. Jean closes his eyes for a fleeting moment, takes a deep breath in.

And does.


	6. Epilogue

Marco does tell Jean his life story, first in bits and pieces, until Jean can’t find himself able to piece it all together on his own. One day he just hands Marco a notebook from the dollar store with a smirk, telling him to write it down instead. Marco writes for days on end while Jean sleeps on the floor, and when he’s finished he blushes and hands the notebook back to waiting hands. Jean begins to read it thoroughly, promising to memorize every detail that Marco has experienced, but Marco sees him squinting at it in late into the night and takes it back from him with gentle hands, saying he can read it when he’s ready. Even if most of him is still shrouded in mystery, Jean finds that he’s okay with loving the Marco he knows right now. He knows what he needs to, for now. Marco died. Marco was a ghost. Marco was dead. Marco _is_ dead, but alive. He had a life before Jean, and it ended. Now he still lives in a limbo, though it’s one that barely reaches him. They’ve figured out a fraction of how it works, now. Jean’s reassurance of his love is enough to keep Marco in tact, to keep him from going back further into the limbo, to keep him from closing in on himself. Marco believing that he’s alive himself is what keeps it away longer. It’s what keeps him here.

So Jean promises to keep him alive, even if they both know that’s not quite the truth.

Half a year later Jean buys an atlas, three maps of the world, and makes sure that apartment has a window with a view. He lies the maps down on the brand new floor, scattered patterns of lines and creases in the paper. And with that Marco travels the world without ever leaving St. Maria’s. They bring the record player upstairs with them and leave a half-broken boom box in the store, and Marco handpicks all his favorite records to come live cozily with them. Frank Sinatra songs about flying away become Marco’s favorite, listening as he stares out of their bedroom window or continues to try to teach Jean to dance (though he never really becomes too good at the footwork.) They decorate with movie posters and strung up quotes from all of their favorite books,and everything they own is small and inexpensive but they both couldn't want anything more than the wooden walls surrounding them and each other.

 

Jean is mid thirties when it’s an early spring day and he’s just walked down the into the store to see the only other person who’d be sitting at the desk at an hour like this. He yawns, sets coffee in front of Marco even though it’s really just his second cup, and sits down next to him. The other employees won’t get here for a couple more hours. Jean had always felt a little bad for the kids who looked like they wouldn’t get any other job, so much like himself back then. So now he has a select few who work for him, most of which are spitting images of his younger self. They mostly keep to themselves, but they’re good kids; he’s a good judge of character, after all.

He and Marco sit in comfortable silence, their hands finding each other without looking. Marco reads a book and draws in the corner of a page, still a teenager by looks but wiser far beyond Jean's years. His hands are still smooth when they take Jean’s slightly calloused ones as Jean breathes. He remembers about a new shipment minutes later and rises to leave, promising a new book for Marco on the way home.

“Don’t stay out too late, crazy kid.” Marco says, and Jean winks at him as he moves across the store. Jean is about to reach for the door when Marco is next to him, his youthful face still looking at Jean’s with absolute elation, even after all this time. Jean kisses him lightly while he opens the door and blows both of their hair back from the breeze. When Jean pulls back, he can see forever reflected in the irises of Marco’s brown eyes, and he continues to see it in the back of his mind as a smile tugs at his lips and he walks out into the unseasonably warm weather.

 

On one of the side streets of an overly ordinary town, a small bookstore still sits the same as it was a hundred years ago, spare some changes around it. Some weeds have grown in-between the cracks in the sidewalk out front, but Mr. Kirschtein usually is on them before they can get too bad. He keeps the entire place cleaner than any of the other stores around it, though most have been deserted by now. They say that Jean Kirschtien, the man who runs the place, spent his entire life savings keeping that tiny shop open. Then again, they do sell the greatest books there. People just keep coming back. Some people find themselves returning out of pity, giving meals to Mr. Kirschtein or offering company, thinking that someone who is alone so often must want something like that. Others even ask him why he’s so content living unaided all the time in the little rooms above the store. He usually just cracks a joke about it, but they’re persistent. He seems too genuinely happy for an unmarried man, but most assumed that maybe he only found comfort in his books and solitude. The kids say that he has an imaginary friend that keeps him from going mad, but their parents continue to try to befriend the old man anyway. He learns their names and greets them on the streets, but he spends more time in that little shop than anywhere else.

Everyone familiar with St. Maria’s always wonders how he keeps his smile.

 

Kids still ride by the old abandoned place sometimes, where the sidewalks are crumbled and the windows are sealed tight with dust. They say that place over there is haunted, with the sign out front collapsed to the ground and covered in rust and age. It used to sell books, apparently. Now the lot of land is overlooked; a shell of a store surrounded by growing trees and plants, slowly shrinking into the forest on the edge of town.

But they say if you catch just the right light, when in the early morning the sky turns pale pink, you might be able to catch two shadows in one of the top windows, if only for a second. Teenagers who broke into the property one summer night told stories of hearing a few notes of music trailing from what felt like behind; a few notes of a trumpet, the gliding sound of a jazz band playing from an unknown place. They felt cold despite the humid weather, and it's then when paranoia started to take over in the dark. The kids who dared to stay said they heard shouts of laughter that sounded like it came from inside the empty place, moving towards them, and that’s when they bolted—one of them falling flat on their face from two shoelaces that mysteriously tied themselves together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like thank every single person that decided to read this fic and is actually deciding to read my final, farewell thoughts. This is by far the biggest response I've ever received on a fic I decided to start off of a whim- and for that I am both s o happy and honestly surprised. I've read through every single comment and I appreciate every kind and amazing message that people have sent me regarding this dumb little AU. I've loved every moment of writing this, even staying up until I'm not making coherent words or crying over my own inability to express myself and my love for these characters. Everyone who made fanart, mixes, or messaged me how much they were dying inside deserves a massive hug, even in digital form. So thanks, everyone, thanks SO much. sorry if I sound a little too sentimental right now I literally just finished writing and this is a v ery bittersweet moment for me so o k thank you everyone
> 
> (you can follow me at jacklalonde.tumblr.com for more of me crying, updates on when another pathetic AU will rise from the depths of my mind, and for any questions, comments, or concerns!)


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